


The Blank Unholy Surprise of It

by whyyesitscar



Series: In the Days of the Comet [2]
Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-19
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-02 01:21:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 41,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1050836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whyyesitscar/pseuds/whyyesitscar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Time travelers are ephemeral. They are transients, full of goodbyes and promises they know they’re not required to keep. Myka is Helena’s anchor and she is unbearably glad for it." // In the wake of Walter Sykes, Helena and Myka must learn how to adjust to each other and the Warehouse. AU S4.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Get a Kick Out of You

**Author's Note:**

> Companion piece to Love Itself Shall Slumber On. I didn't intend to continue that universe, but then I did, so forgive any minor discrepancies. I've tried to make everything fit and they're too insignificant/I'm too lazy to fix them. The theme of the story is centered around a mix of standards I found on Tumblr [here](http://kingschultzies.tumblr.com/post/56108857015/lets-do-it-lets-fall-in-love-a-playlist-for-an).

> **Macaulay Connor:** A magnificence that comes out of your eyes, in your voice, in the way you stand there, in the way you walk. You're lit from within, Tracy. You've got fires banked down in you, hearth-fires and holocausts.  
>  **Tracy Lord:** I don't seem to you made of bronze?  
>  **Macaulay Connor:** No, you're made out of flesh and blood. That's the blank, unholy surprise of it. You're the golden girl, Tracy. Full of life and warmth and delight. What goes on? You've got tears in your eyes.  
>  _—The Philadelphia Story (1940)_

**.**

**i get a kick every time i see you**  
 **standing there before me**

**.**

“Pete, stop eating the butter.”

“I’m not eating the butter; I’m eating bread.”

“Oh, there’s bread under there? I can’t imagine why I missed it.”

“Yeah, okay, well what about you and your, your—”

“My what?”

“I don’t know; you have to have a food thing. Everybody has a food thing. Myka has her Twizzlers, Artie has his cookies—”

“Uh, dude, cookies are totally _your_ food thing.”

“Can someone pass the salad?”

“It’s right by your elbow, man.”

“A little out of my reach, Pete.”

“Stretch.”

“You know, you’d be surprised how being dead for three weeks can really take it out of you.”

“Oh, _that’s_ what that is!”

“Here you are, Steven.”

“Thanks, H.G.”

“Because I thought maybe there was a rotting cat under the floorboards or something.”

“I don’t smell like a rotting cat.”

“You don’t smell at all, Jinksy.”

“Thanks, Claud.”

“Or maybe the toxic stench of death has just burned my nostrils from the inside out and I won’t smell anything ever again—”

“You are not my partner anymore.”

“Aw, come on—”

“No, stop. You don’t get salad.”

/

When she was a little girl, Myka would play a game of Favorites with her friends. They were mostly Tracy’s friends, actually. Myka will admit that now, but she couldn’t for a very long time. They’d gather in someone’s room, or in a park, or a backyard—sit down with a couple bags of Starburst and as much soda as they could sneak away from their parents. Someone would introduce a topic and then they’d go in a circle and say what their favorite kind of it was. It wasn’t necessarily a competition, but Myka always seemed to lose. She never picked the right favorites.

Myka’s favorites were never blue or ponies. They were grass and ink; being in school late at night; talking with adults because they listened. Myka’s favorites were abstract things. She did not have favorite colors or songs. She had favorite moments and feelings and words—and words are more abstract than not, if you really take the time to think about them. Myka always took the time to think about them.

If thought were a sense, it would be Myka’s favorite. But it isn’t because thought is not common to everyone, and so Myka contents herself with sight. It’s an awful sense, truly the worst one to cherish most. You can forget a taste or a smell. Touches fade eventually. But sights stay with you; they rear up when you least want them to. Everything you’ve ever seen is buried inside you, bubbling under your skin and waiting to surface. Sight is what burns you.

Yet Myka favors sight, because sight is the vessel through which we experience wonder.

Helena told her about it once, how wonder used to be a more substantial noun that what it is now. It used to be an entire state of being rather than just an emotion; to some humorless adults, it was even an affliction.

“Charles was certainly sick with it his entire life,” she added with a smirk. Myka almost asked if that included the years after he lost his niece and sister, but she caught herself. Helena wouldn’t know.

So she didn’t say anything, just listened as Helena explained about the growing interest in optics over the course of the 19th century, how scientists and intellectuals were fascinated by the power of the eye and our reliance on it. Helena grumbled, quite endearingly, about how Arthur Conan Doyle got all the credit and stupid fans clamoring for stupid Sherlock Holmes and his overrated powers of observation— _even Arthur hated Sherlock, darling; he tired of him rather quickly_ —when that wasn’t even the half of it. Observation was only one piece of the puzzle. Perception was something else entirely.

“To believe in wonders is akin to rediscovering the lost pleasures of childhood,” Helena had mused. Myka thought that might just be the crux of Helena’s problems—the tendency to get lost due to a pair of wandering, wondering eyes.

“And what about you?” she had asked. “Were you sick with wonder?”

Helena had smiled the kind of slow, creeping smile that always spells trouble. “Darling, I was an inventor and a scientist. I worked at Warehouse 12 and solved puzzles for fun.”

“Yeah, so?”

“I wasn’t just sick with wonder.” Helena winked. “I was positively terminal.”

Even now, Myka thinks about that and laughs.

Dinner is wonderful and happy, and Myka should be appreciating her sense of taste, like everyone else is. (Pete is appreciating it twice.) But she’s taking the time to watch everyone instead—Claudia is finally smiling again; Pete sprays Leena, who is unfortunately sitting across from him, with food when he talks; Steve moves only as much as he needs to and he looks like he wants to move even less than that; Helena won’t stop pestering him with questions about his brief time as a corpse; Artie shoots Claudia proud looks that she doesn’t notice. Myka can’t look at Artie when he’s like that. It isn’t right to see him so near tears. She’d feel the same way if Mrs. Frederic ever started crying.

So her gaze lands on Helena more often than not, which isn’t exactly an unusual occurrence. Myka has been watching Helena ever since they met. In the beginning it was all they had—a look, a smirk, a smile, maybe a hug if they were lucky. (No one at the Warehouse is ever lucky.) It’s a hard habit to break, especially when Myka doesn’t really feel a need to break it. Helena is an infinite library, and Myka won’t stop looking until she’s read every inch of her.

Helena nudges her foot under the table. “You’re staring, darling.”

“Aren’t I always?” Myka murmurs.

“Yes,” Helena smirks, “though this time it’s a little inopportune.”

“Why?”

“Mykes, quit ogling your girl and answer my question.”

Myka rolls her eyes and rotates her head to face Pete. “What’s your question?”

“My mom’s gonna come over tonight; you down for a board game or two?”

“Doesn’t Mr. Kosan have a problem with your mom visiting us so often, considering how easy it was for Sykes to track down all the Regents?”

Pete puts down his fork. “Well, I guess. I’ve never really thought about it because I like having her around so much.”

“He has a big problem with it, but I think I can take him,” Jane chimes in from the doorway. Myka furrows her brows, wondering how she got in. Of course Jane notices. “You think Mrs. Frederic is the only one who can sneak up on you?” she teases.

“Hey, mom.” Pete gets up to give Jane a hug and a kiss and ignores the snickering from Claudia. “Come sit. You hungry?”

“Not really, but—is that baked ziti?”

“So _that’s_ where Pete gets it from,” Steve teases.

Jane points a warning finger at him. “Hey, watch it, mister. I can put you back.”

“No way, Super Mom,” Claudia immediately retorts.

“Me and my dad were the eaters anyway,” Pete adds. “Mom was the awesome, awesome chef.”

“Yeah, well, right about the time you graduated high school I found someone whose cooking was even better.”

Pete furrows his brows, confused for a moment, before finally turning his attention to Leena. “You? You were my mom’s book club?!”

Leena smiles. “Well, I didn’t know she called it that, but yeah, I guess I was.”

“I thought you would catch on earlier, Pete; most book clubs don’t last for three days.”

“Dude, you thought your mom was at a book club for three days?” Claudia snorts.

Pete holds his hands wide in defense, breadcrumbs falling from his fingers. “Well, one: that was right around the time Drunk Pete started showing up, so excuse me for not remembering much. And two: it was only, like, once a month, okay? Moms have book clubs,” he shrugs. “Besides, I bet Myka would go to a book club for three days.”

“My dad owns a bookstore, Pete,” Myka deadpans. “My entire _life_ was a book club.”

Pete turns back to Leena. “How long have you been working for the Warehouse, anyway?” He scrunches his nose in disgust. “You’re not, like, three hundred or anything, are you?”

“I feel I should take offense to that,” Helena quips.

Leena just shakes her head and gets up. “Let me fix you a plate, Jane.”

Jane waves her off. “Nonsense, I’ve been doing it myself for the better part of twenty years. No reason to change anything now.”

“One of these days, this job is going to make my head explode,” Pete groans, rubbing his fingers on his temples.

“If it does, let me film it so I can hock the footage and make a few bucks.” Pete answers Claudia’s jocular grin by flinging a bit of pasta at her.

“Children,” Artie laments. “I am working with children.”

No one listens to him.

Game night, as always, is a wild success.

/

“Claudia seems close with Steven,” Helena remarks later that night.

Myka smiles and tilts her head. “Do you always have to be so formal? Steven, Arthur…they’re Steve and Artie.”

“I’m fairly certain that Arthur does not want me to be as informal with him as everyone else is. And as for Steven,” Helena shrugs, “I think he’s more formal than any of you really know.”

“But look at how close he and Claudia are,” Myka points out.

Helena simply shrugs again. “Everyone has their somebody.”

“That is an awfully modern sentence, coming from your mouth.”

“I didn’t know how else to put it.”

“Who is your somebody, then?”

“Pete.”

“What, _Pete_ -Pete?” Myka splutters.

“No, darling, the ferret. We cuddle at night when you’ve stolen all the covers.”

Myka chuckles and rolls her eyes. “Oh, you’re hilarious.”

“You seem to find me very amusing,” Helena says, returning the laugh. “Of course you’re my somebody, Myka. I should hope I’m yours.”

“Well, you’ll have to share me with Pete.”

“The ferret?”

“Stop it.”

“Alright. Would you like to take a walk?”

“It’s almost ten, Helena,” Myka says, even as she reaches for her coat.

“Do you have the sleep schedule of a schoolgirl? Let’s go for a walk.”

“I don’t want to go to bed; I was just calculating where the constellations would be.”

“I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me—with your enormous intellect, I wonder if there’s anything in which you’re not well-versed.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I _think_ there was a heavy dose of mocking in there somewhere.” Helena stays silent. “Anyway, I’m not an expert in constellations. Pete is, though. He’s the one who taught me all of them.”

Helena hums her surprise. “The Warehouse is always introduced as a place of endless wonder, but I believe most of that wonder resides in its agents.”

Myka threads her arm through Helena’s as the wind picks up. “He used to stargaze with his dad,” she explains. She shakes her head, her curls blending in with the night sky. “That’s a story for another time and Pete tells it better anyway. I’m more interested in why _you_ are so fixated on Steve.”

“I am not!”

“You wouldn’t stop grilling him at dinner. Have I got some competition?”

“Hardly, darling. I’ll leave that to Claudia.”

Myka bursts out laughing, and it only gets worse when Helena shoots her a bewildered look. “Yeah, that’s never gonna happen.”

“Why not?”

“Steve can tell you that one.”

There is silence between them because there always has been. Myka has always measured her relationships by who she can be silent with. Almost everyone at the Warehouse makes the list—even Pete, in spite of his inability to ever be quiet for more than a minute (unless he’s sleeping). But their friendship has never followed any of Myka’s normal measurements anyway.

Helena, however, came into this world silently. (In 1906, she went gentle into that good night and came out broken. Maybe that’s what Thomas was talking about.) Myka wonders sometimes if Helena is still adjusting to living without the bronze. She wonders if she should take all the questions Helena had for Steve and turn them right back on her.

But the night is cool and windy; the stars sparkle when they’re not looking and the moon peeks through the branches of shedding trees. It is a night for quiet, and they walk.

“I suppose I feel an obligation to make sure he’s alright,” Helena finally offers, “considering the first time we met was just before his death.”

“Did Sykes at least wait…?” Helena shakes her head quickly—terse, jerky movements that all but scream for Myka to stop asking questions. But Myka can’t resist just one more. “How much do you remember about Emily Lake?” she softly pries.

“Enough.”

“Okay.”

They will have time later to talk about everything; Myka will make sure of that. She will stand up to Artie if she has to, and there are not enough Regents in the world to pry Helena from her life again. They are the ultimate authority in the Warehouse and Myka respects their position, but when it comes to H.G. Wells, they are simply wrong.

It’s a matter for another day, a problem to be addressed if it ever manifests. For now, Myka threads her fingers through Helena’s and looks up at the stars. They are always more beautiful when you’re in good company.

Tonight the stars are radiant.

/

Autumn nights in South Dakota cool quickly, and they head back to Leena’s after only a short while even though Myka could have stayed out there all night. She loves her job and she’ll never leave it again, but free time—especially _alone_ -free time—is scarce. So she cherishes it when she can, and takes comfort in other small delights.

Like watching Pete goof off with Claudia, because his big-brother smile for her is different from the one he reserves for Myka. Some nights, she curls up with a good book and a sleepy ferret, and she pets him as he rests on her chest. Myka never imagined that she’d need two Petes in her life (and sometimes, she explicitly wished for that _not_ to happen), but she wouldn’t give either of them up now.

There are nights like tonight where she intentionally walks slower than Helena, just so she can watch her move. Tonight she picks a flower from the small garden by the porch when they get home, even though Leena will frown at her later. No doubt Helena knows all about botany and the proper taxonomy for every species of flower, but Myka doesn’t. She picks this one because yellow is a graceful color and it matches Helena perfectly.

She smiles when she tucks it behind Helena’s ear because Helena is actually blushing. They go upstairs even though Claudia is down in the living room, offering them a chance to (once again) defeat her mercilessly at chess. It isn’t fair, putting both of their minds against Claudia’s one, but Claudia insists on it every time. Helena likes winning too much to ever refuse.

Helena sighs when they get to their room, the kind of sigh that means she’s filing away the day’s events for some other time. Myka chuckles, kisses Helena’s cheek, and they hug for a very, very long time.

It’s the little things.  


	2. At Last

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to clarify the timeline in last chapter's notes--this whole story fits somewhere in the third chapter of Love Itself Shall Slumber On, if anyone felt the need to nitpick the mistakes. (They're there; I know it. They're just not that big, so I don't care.)

**i found a dream that i could speak to,**  
 **a dream that i could call my own.**  
 **i found a thrill that i can press my cheek to,**  
 **a thrill that i have never known.**

**.**

Helena remembers more about Emily Lake than she cares to, which is to say that she remembers everything and wishes she didn’t. She wants to say that she remembers the confusion the most—the nagging feeling at night that her life was only a partial truth; the memories that weren’t quite real—but that would be a lie. What she remembers most is the peace. Emily Lake had no connection to H.G. Wells. Indeed, she had no real connection to a past of any sort, and thus very little to worry about. Emily Lake felt like she belonged in Cheyenne because she had no reason to believe otherwise.

It is torture, now, that Helena should feel that peace again in the wake of all of her indiscretions.

But she endures the guilt because Myka allows her to, because Myka makes it possible to forget her past. Helena is haunted by her past. She is mired by it, drowning in memories and regrets. That Myka can ground her in the present (and inspire flights of fancy toward the future) is a feat in itself.

Time travelers are ephemeral. They are transients, full of goodbyes and promises they know they’re not required to keep.

Myka is Helena’s anchor and she is unbearably glad for it.

/

Everyone groans when Arthur joins them for breakfast. There is never good news when he does—either something is acting up inside the Warehouse, or there is an artifact whose retrieval Arthur has deemed more urgent than most. Helena does not like it when Arthur joins them for breakfast because she does not like early morning flights, and the two seem to coincide more often than can be called accidental.

“We have a ping,” Arthur grumps as he makes a plate of pancakes.

“C’mon, Artie,” Pete whines, “can’t we have a break for a little while? There have gotta be other people who can take care of this.”

“Oh, yes, let me just put a call into the _other_ Warehouse. How silly of me.”

“Artie…”

Arthur sighs. “Fine, you want a break?” Pete nods. “Then you can stay here, and Myka will take Claudia to Tennessee.”

“Oh, balls, dude,” Claudia interjects. “Tennessee is gonna be wicked hot right now. Besides, H.G. and I were about to kick ass on this project we’re working on.”

Arthur drops his fork and knife. “Excuse me, have you all forgotten that you _work_ for me? That means you do what I tell you to do and you go where I tell you to go. And right now, I am telling you to go to Tennessee.”

“Alright, alright. Keep your shorts on, old man. What’s in Tennessee?”

“We’re not sure what’s causing it,” Arthur explains as he hands over case files, “but people in Greeneville are doing some very strange things before going into unresponsive trances.”

“Are we sure Walter Winchell’s cuff links are still in the Warehouse?” Myka asks.

Arthur nods. “I’ve checked already; this is something new. That’s all we know, and your flight leaves at nine, so get packing.”

Myka nods and leaves the table, dragging Claudia with her and burying her head in her case file. Helena watches them leave, debating whether she should follow them for a quick word. She taps her fingers against her plate before finally deciding that it is indeed worth it.

Arthur doesn’t even look her way as she gets up. “Sit,” he simply says.

“Arthur—”

“Later. I need you here right now.”

Helena sighs, swallowing her hostility. She has never appreciated being ordered around—Caturanga’s gentle guidance more than suited her—but she appreciates it even less from Arthur Nielsen. He is patronizing without any good reason to be. Helena is worth more than his condescension.

“I simply wish to say goodbye,” she says as evenly as she can.

“It’s not a heavy case, Helena. They don’t have the whole world to save, just a town.”

“The last case I worked with the Warehouse did not start as a heavy case, and yet I found myself thwarting an explosion from a century-old trumpet that would have killed 40,000 people.”

“Yes, and?”

“And simple cases can become complex, so I’d like to say goodbye.”

Arthur waves his hands dismissively as she waits, which Helena takes as acquiescence. There isn’t much she likes to assume about the Warehouse, but neither does she have the patience for Arthur’s games. She’ll gladly withstand his ire later if it means a proper sendoff with Myka now.

“…This is totally not fair,” Helena hears Claudia complain as she walks up the stairs. “Not that I don’t love missions with you, Myka, but why can’t I go with Jinksy? We only just got him back.”

“Maybe that’s the point,” Myka answers. “Would you be able to run after bad guys if you were technically only three weeks old?”

“Yes,” Claudia grumbles, though there’s no heart in it. “Okay, probably not,” she concedes. “But don’t tell me you wouldn’t rather be stuck here at home with your girl.”

“I think we’d all prefer that, darling,” Helena chimes in from the doorway.

“Took you long enough,” Myka smiles.

“Hey, H.G.,” Claudia waves. “I can go, if you want…”

Helena shakes her head. “Nonsense; you won’t pack if we aren’t here to watch you.”

“Maybe I would,” Claudia retorts. Helena gives her a pointed look as Myka slips a pair of socks into Claudia’s duffel bag.

“I’ll be glad for the day you prove me wrong,” she says. Helena turns her attention to Myka. “Would you like a ride to the airport?”

“We’ll be fine, Helena; I can drive,” Myka deflects, though her smile widens.

“You don’t know how long you’ll be away and the parking fees at that airport are positively heinous. Let me drive you.”

“If you drive, we’ll miss our flight,” Myka teases.

Helena gasps in mock-offense. “I am not _that_ slow a driver.”

“Oh, yeah you are, H.G.,” Claudia adds. “If I put Steve behind the wheel while he was dead he’d still be faster than you.”

“I think you all put too high a price on speed.”

“How about a compromise?” Myka offers. “I’ll drive, we’ll take you with, and you can drive home on your own—as slow as you want.”

Helena wants to scowl. It would wipe the smirk right off of Myka’s face.

She smiles and nods instead.

/

The drive to the airport is too fast for Helena’s taste, though not as fast as it would be with Pete. But she sits in the passenger seat and holds Myka’s hand across the center console as they all chat, and it more than makes up for the brevity of the trip.

The airport is never crowded because it’s in South Dakota, which means Helena can linger at the drop-off lane more than she could at O’Hare or JFK. In light of some very large failures, she is learning to appreciate the little victories.

“I expect a call every night—from _both_ of you,” Helena emphasizes. She smiles at the blush Claudia always fails to conceal. “Promise me you won’t stay more than a week.”

“I wish I could promise things like that with this job,” Myka says as she holds open the driver’s side door.

“Oh, I know you can’t,” Helena dismisses. “Promise me anyway.”

“Okay,” Myka grins. “I promise.”

“Wonderful.” Helena clicks her seatbelt into place and rolls down the window, squinting at Myka and Claudia against the early morning sun.

Myka settles her elbows on the window ledge. “Kiss for the road?”

“Just one?”

Myka scrunches up her nose. “Yeah, well, we’re in a bit of a hurry. Gotta save the world and all.”

“Well, I’m not sure I can oblige. I fear if I give you just one kiss, I won’t be able to stop.”

“You know, I’m really okay with that.”

“Uncomfortable young person,” Claudia calls from the sidewalk.

“Oh, do hush,” Helena admonishes. “It’s not as if we’re considerably older than you.”

“She isn’t,” Claudia says, pointing to Myka. “But you are.”

“Biological age, darling,” Helena points out. “My body might have weathered an extra century, but it did not feel it. The wonders of cryogenic preservation.”

“That’s not the only wonder about your body,” Myka murmurs.

Helena laughs and pushes her away. “Don’t tempt me, darling; I have no willpower when it comes to you.”

“Just give me a kiss, Helena.”

“Gladly.”

(The speedometer never ticks below fifty on the drive home. It almost feels like Myka’s still in the car with her.)

/

Arthur is not at the B&B when she gets back to Univille, so Helena readies herself for a day of work and heads over to the Warehouse. He is exactly where she expected him to be—crouched at his desk, mumbling to himself and a few dozen pieces of paper.

“Good, you’re here,” he says when the door to the Umbilicus hisses shut. “Let’s have a chat.”

“A chat? Is that a euphemism for a scolding?”

Arthur finally looks up. “No, but it might be if you keep interrupting me. This chat comes at the request of the Regents.”

Helena immediately stiffens and crosses her arms. “If they are reclaiming me again, I will protest.”

“They are,” Arthur confirms, nodding his head. “Well, they’re trying to.”

“And what is stopping them?”

“Me.”

“You?” Helena blurts. “Forgive my candor, Arthur, but you have—”

“—never really liked you,” he finishes. “Or respected you, or valued you; I know. Things change.”

“What sort of things?”

“That I can’t tell you.”

“If this is a trick it’s a particularly vile one.”

Arthur shakes his head, his hair bouncing slightly. “It isn’t a trick.” He crosses his arms and leans back in his chair. “Three weeks is more than the time you should have had before talking with the Regents, mostly because Jane, Mrs. Frederic and I have been running interference.” He shrugs. “We’ve run out of reasons to stall. They want to talk to you this week.”

“Do you have any idea what they’d like to say?”

“I think it’s safe to say they’d like to talk about Yellowstone.”

Helena rolls her eyes. “I agreed with Pete when he suggested destroying the Janus coin, and he would have gone through with it had Marcus and Steven not interrupted us. Surely self-sacrifice more than makes up for a little madness.”

“I happen to think it does,” Arthur replies, “especially when—” He shakes his head again. “Never mind. I agree with you. But you need the Regents to agree with you, too.”

Helena cocks her head and narrows her eyes. This is the strangest conversation she’s ever had with Arthur, not the least because she still can’t ascertain his motives. If she takes his words at face value, they still don’t explain the sudden shift in attitude.

“Why are you being nice to me?” she asks. “Why are you, Jane, and Irene helping me when by all rights you should be throwing me to the mercy of the Regents?”

“Jane and Mrs. Frederic are backing you up because I asked them to,” Arthur deflects.

“And you? Helena presses.

He hesitates. “Later,” he finally says. “I have a good hunch—and even my bad hunches are usually good—that you’ll be officially reinstated soon, and I’d like the team to be fully functional by then. So get used to the Warehouse and we can quibble over _feelings_ ”—(he scowls over the word, as if it is leaving a rotten taste in his mouth)—“later.”

“Does this mean you’ll be sending me on missions?” Helena makes sure her voice is steady, but inside her heart is thumping a furious tattoo against her chest. She is not a fearful woman. Helena has conquered heights, small spaces, and darkness. She has cheated death. And yet the thought of chasing artifacts halts her. It shakes and shocks her, reawakens the small child who cowered from night terrors.

“You’ll go on missions when I say you’re ready,” Arthur answers.

Helena almost cries from relief.

She does not let Arthur see her struggle. “And if that occurs before _I_ think I’m ready?”

Arthur turns back to his papers. “You’ll be ready,” he huffs. “Pete’s somewhere down by the Equator; go make sure he hasn’t broken anything yet.”

“Righty-ho.” Helena salutes him and leaves.

(It’s the kind of salute that would earn her a reprimand for insubordination if she were actually in the military.)

/

The Equator is the literal center of the Warehouse and as far as Helena has ever traveled. It expands with the Warehouse, so Helena is never sure how big the Warehouse might be, but she knows that it houses some of the more mystical artifacts and she knows that it is prudent to stay far away from them, and that is enough.

There are artifacts, as Myka once explained, that are simply drawn to each other no matter how ardently the agents try to separate them. They are artifacts from mysterious locations—the Bermuda Triangle, Stonehenge, Easter Island, among others—that cling to each other despite no recorded historical connections. Countless Caretakers and Agents have tried to dilute their power. Facing centuries of failure, the Warehouse gave up and shoved them all together under a stronger containment field and the promise of more frequent inspections.

Those inspections usually come at the hands of agents who are being punished, so Helena has become very familiar with the Equator as of late. She assumes Pete is here this morning because of what he said at breakfast.

She can hear him crashing around before she even sees him.

“God, no—stay!” Metal clangs against metal and Helena winces. “Shit, shit, _ow!_ ” Pete yells.

“Would you like some assistance, Pete?”

Pete turns his head at her voice but doesn’t move his body—a wise choice, as he’s currently holding up three precarious artifacts and the slightest jostle would topple them.

“H.G.! Just who I was looking for!”

“Oh, really?”

“Well, no,” Pete admits, “but come help anyway; I can’t hold these much longer.”

“Of course.” She snaps on a glove and reaches for the wobbliest artifact, a piece of equipment from Amelia Earhart’s plane, and stabilizes it so Pete can focus on the other two.

“Thanks, H.G.,” he finally says when he’s got them back into place.

She smiles at his triumphant grin and props a hand on her waist. “Are you ever going to learn that there are no shortcuts when it comes to artifact maintenance?”

Pete considers this for a brief moment. “Nah, probably not. I hope too much.” He dusts off his hands and takes a deep breath. “Artie banish you here?”

Helena nods. “Indeed. I’ve been considering setting up a cot; El Dorado’s gold dust twinkles like stars at night.”

“Wait, the famous City of Gold was all dust?” Pete scoffs. “Laaaaame.”

Helena chuckles. “No, El Dorado was a king first; he covered himself in gold dust and went swimming in the Guatavita Lake—”

Pete shakes his head until she stops talking.

“Right, I’ll save the history lesson for later.”

“Or never,” Pete mumbles. “Anyway, you can’t shack up here; Mykes would blow a gasket.”

“Yes, well, she may be prone to that as long as Arthur keeps assigning me chores down here.”

Pete looks up from his checklist. “Is Artie really picking on you that much?”

Helena sighs. “No, I suppose not. We actually just had a fairly civil conversation.”

“Maybe the old geezer’s finally warming up to you,” Pete shrugs.

“Perhaps,” Helena contemplates, “though I can’t imagine why.”

“Uh, hello, you totally just helped save the world from a homicidal psycho.”

“A year ago I _was_ the homicidal psycho,” Helena mutters. “And in the grand scheme of things, I didn’t really do much. Arthur is the one who stopped the bomb. I merely stalled Sykes long enough to allow him not to shoot you and Myka.”

Pete turns to face her, his expression unusually somber. “That’s more than enough for me.”

Helena is undeterred. “Steven was murdered because Sykes found me.”

“Hey, one: Sykes would have killed Steve if he’d found you or not, and two: he’s alive and kickin’ again. No harm done.” Helena doesn’t believe him for a second. Pete notices. Eating habits aside, heightened sensitivity is certainly a trait he has acquired from Jane. “And anyway,” he continues, “you _totally_ saved, like, everyone when you—” Pete clears his throat and shakes his head. “You did good, Helena. You really did good.”

“I did _well_ ,” Helena corrects, smiling.

“No, I mean good,” Pete insists, and Helena finds she has to look away. “So, it’s a little past noon, right?” Pete checks his watch dramatically, easing any tension. “Mykes and Claudia have probably landed by now. I know you guys like to have your little lunch dates; why don’t you hide out in the library for a while and I can chill here for a bit.”

“I can stay—”

“No, no,” Pete rejects, waving his hands. “Grab a sandwich and the Farnsworth and I’ll get you later. We all need a bit of rest.”

Helena dips her head and smiles gratefully. “You’re more than welcome to join us, Pete. Lunch with you is never boring.”

“I’ll remember that tomorrow,” he grins, snapping his fingers. “Go.”

Helena smiles and sneaks off. Twenty minutes later she is settled into her favorite chair in the library with a chicken salad sandwich that Claudia left in the Pete-cave. (She’ll restock it later.)

Myka answers on the first ring. “Took you long enough,” she teases again.

“Don’t listen to her, H.G.,” Claudia calls from off-screen. “We literally just stepped into the hotel room. You have crazy timing.”

“Merely a coincidence, darling. I wish I could take credit for it.”

“Oh, you’ll take credit anyway,” Myka jabs lightly.

“Perhaps,” Helena smiles.

Myka chuckles. Helena watches her curls bounce and swirl.

“Are you alright?” Myka asks. “You look so serious.”

“Well, I certainly won’t be jumping for joy while we’re states apart.”

“No, I mean it, Helena. Are you okay?”

Helena takes a breath. Her smile falters for only a second. “I’m fine, darling. There are things to talk about but they can wait until you return.  Tell me about Tennessee.”

“Haven’t seen much of it,” Myka shrugs. “Though we did pass by more than a few bars on the way here.”

“Clean and well-lit establishments, I presume?”

“Hardly,” Myka smirks. “You’d cause a scene in all of them.”

“Well, I think I may have to book a flight down to Tennessee rather soon.”

“Uncomfortable young person!” Claudia calls again.

“Yes. Claudia darling, I am ever so fond of you,” Helena calls back, “but you are perfectly free to leave the room this time.”

“Got it; burger time.” She passes behind Myka, occupying the small screen for barely a moment. Helena waits until she hears the door click to focus on Myka again.

“Now,” she drawls, “where were we?”


	3. You Do Something to Me

**let me live 'neath your spell.**  
 **do, do that voodoo that you do so well,**  
 **for you do something to me**  
 **that nobody else could do.**

**.**

Work without Myka is tedious. Sleeping without Myka is tedious. _Everything_ without Myka is tedious. It’s a level of frustration for which Helena was not prepared. She has always been a restless creature. Most Warehouse agents are; Wolly was always doodling or cross-checking inventory. Pete eats, Claudia hacks, Myka writes copies of copies of paperwork. Helena has always been an inventor, but it wasn’t until Warehouse 12 that she took to the habit of tinkering. Time has never sped so quickly as it does when she has something to take apart.

But recent weeks have spoiled her and inventing alone is not enough. Steven is a wonderful second set of eyes when she is temporarily stuck, and Pete’s questions can be surprisingly lucid—but they are not Claudia’s eyes or Myka’s questions. H.G. Wells, agent of Warehouse 12, was content with inventing. Helena Wells of Warehouse 13 has experienced more, and she yearns for it every day.

Nevertheless, Helena spends time with Pete and Steven. She chats with Leena in the mornings and tries to text Myka and Claudia when she can. The case is proving considerably more frustrating than anyone had expected, and after more than a few failed attempts at research, Arthur isn’t the only one grumbling around the Warehouse.

Three days pass before Helena confronts Arthur about their conversation. She would have asked him about it earlier—he may be the master of avoidance but Helena can persuade just about anyone to do just about anything—but Myka kept cautioning her against it. _Please don’t push it, Helena_ , she’d cautioned over brief calls from the Farnsworth. _Things are still so tense between you two_ , she’d said. _Don’t give him a reason to punish you_ , she’d said.

Helena considers it a personal accomplishment that she has managed to wait three days.

“Do you ever intend on telling me what the Regents want?” she asks one day, cornering him after lunch while Pete and Steven are scattered across the Warehouse floor.

Arthur straightens slightly and stops writing, but he does not look at her. “I was going to fairly soon, yes.”

“When?”

“When I told him to, Ms. Wells,” Mrs. Frederic says from behind her.

Helena starts at her voice but makes a point not to show it too much. “You must teach me that trick, Irene,” she smiles. “I would imagine it comes in very handy.”

“You would imagine correctly,” Mrs. Frederic answers.

“ _Irene?_ ” Artie blurts. Mrs. Frederic glares at him and waits. “Fine, fine. Irene,” he concedes, rolling his eyes. “Let’s just get on with this.”

Helena crosses her arms. “Get on with what?”

She turns toward Arthur, but it is Mrs. Frederic who answers her. “Ms. Wells, I’m going to share a few details of your past with Artie. I say this not so you can protest”—she gives Helena a pointed look, as she was in the middle of doing just that—“but so you have no grounds to protest later. Fair warning, you know.”

“I know Helena’s past, Mrs. Frederic,” Arthur sighs. “In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s the reason she almost killed everyone.”

“You know pieces of it, Artie. You do not know the most important parts.” Mrs. Frederic pivots to address Helena. “Do you smell anything in this warehouse, Ms. Wells?”

“No. Should I?”

“Did you smell anything in Warehouse 12?”

Helena finally gets it. “Oh. Yes, there was a constant scent of apples. Caturanga said that it was the Warehouse’s way of expressing affection.”

“It was,” Mrs. Frederic confirms. “Indeed, it still is. He would have explained further had he the time, but the smell of apples has a more significant meaning to an agent’s growth.”

“It does?” Helena asks, her curiosity piqued.

“Yes,” Mrs. Frederic nods. “It is one of the ways the Regents select potential Caretakers.”

Helena is just as stunned as Arthur, by the looks of it. “I was going to be the next Caretaker?”

“You might have been. It is not anything set in stone; had you not been bronzed, there is a chance you still might not have assumed the role. But you had the most potential of any other agent to thrive.”

“Why don’t I smell apples now?”

“This is not Warehouse 12, Ms. Wells. Your time has come and gone.”

“That’s a rather harsh way of putting it,” Helena mumbles.

“Simply the facts.”

“Why is this relevant?” Arthur asks.

Mrs. Frederic folds her hands behind her back. “The Regents have come to realize that certain Warehouse policies may need updating.”

Arthur scoffs. “You mean like the one that hides crucial information about former enemies from the people who should be most informed?”

(Mrs. Frederic glares at him again.)

“If you’re speaking about me, Arthur, I have to say I agree with the Regents’ decision to hide me.”

“If we’d known about your situation, we could have stopped Sykes earlier.”

“ _I_ knew nothing of Walter Sykes; do you think Emily Lake knew more?”

“I think what Emily Lake knew is irrelevant. It would have made a difference if we had known.”

“Myka would have come looking for me.”

“No, she wouldn’t. She was furious with you.”

“And Claudia?” Helena offers softly.

Arthur has no answer.

“As I was saying,” Mrs. Frederic chimes in again, “it is time for the Warehouse to reevaluate its current situation. What Walter Sykes accomplished was improbable but not impossible. We are in need of better safeguards.”

“More Regents?” Helena sneers.

“You,” Mrs. Frederic replies.

“What, a Regent?”

“Agents do not graduate to Regency, Ms. Wells; it does not suit them. The jobs are separate for a reason. And you are no longer an Agent, at least not in the capacity you are used to. But,” she continues, “you are still useful and valuable to this Warehouse, and so we must adjust.”

“The Warehouse must adjust to me,” Helena repeats in disbelief.

“It has been adjusting to you ever since you were bronzed. We tried to treat you like any other agent, but that backfired tremendously.”

“This is fascinating, Mrs. Frederic,” Arthur interrupts in a tone that contradicts his words, “but why do I have to be here?”

“You could do with some adjusting too, Artie. Ms. Wells is not going anywhere. You will get used to her presence. You will be courteous.”

Arthur bristles. “You don’t need to treat me like a child, Mrs. Frederic.”

“Then don’t act like one. Ms. Wells is not someone you can kick around simply because you are her superior. As of this moment you are her superior, but only just. Helena, I’d like to propose something.”

Helena takes a deep breath. “You want me to play gofer for the Regents, to put it colloquially,” she infers.

“No,” Mrs. Frederic answers. “I was hoping you would be my backup. To put it colloquially.”

Helena furrows her brow. “I’m sorry?”

Mrs. Frederic smiles before turning to Arthur. “Artie, could you excuse us for a moment?”

“Gladly.”

Mrs. Frederic pulls Helena out of his office and onto the ledge overlooking the heart of the Warehouse. It is one of Helena’s favorite views. Never mind the fact that most of the artifacts are dangerous or deadly—there is history within her grasp and all Helena has to do to touch it is fly. Sometimes, in between bouts of guilt, Helena wonders if that is how Myka sees her.

“How are you?” Mrs. Frederic asks.

“I’m fine. Irene, _what_ is going on?”

Mrs. Frederic gives her a long look. “Helena. How are you?” she repeats.

“I am coping,” Helena mumbles, looking down. “I have weathered worse and come out the other side; I have no doubt in my abilities to do so again. I do wonder, though—three weeks ago you were ready to hand me over to the Regents once again, and now you’re here asking for my help.”

“Is that a question?”

Helena shrugs. “Just a curious observation.”

Mrs. Frederic answers it anyway. “Three weeks ago the Regents had more control over me than they should have. Balance has since been restored. I have always been on your side, Helena.”

“Since I failed to end the world, you mean.”

“Who do you think gave Myka’s report to Mr. Kosan in the first place?” Mrs. Frederic challenges. Helena simply smiles. “Now, about my proposition…”

“I’m going to need more information before I blindly say yes, Irene.”

Mrs. Frederic just smiles. “You have skills and abilities upon which the Regents will never capitalize. Which is irrelevant, because I am the one asking for your assistance, not the Regents.”

“Won’t that get you into trouble?” Helena smiles.

Mrs. Frederic offers her one in return. “Perhaps. But I have never shared an agenda with the Regents, and it has yet to result in a grievous mistake. I can handle a little trouble.”

“What is your agenda this time?”

“The Warehouse needs improvement, as I’ve already said.”

“Claudia seems to be the resident handywoman.”

Mrs. Frederic shakes her head. “I don’t mean physical improvements, though I have no doubt those will become a necessity at some point.” She takes a breath and cocks her head, changing the direction of the conversation. Helena wonders what she was going to say that was suddenly deemed less important. She’s fairly certain Irene Frederic has never said anything unimportant in her life.

“There is someone at this Warehouse who does smell apples, Helena; do you know who?” Mrs. Frederic finally asks.

Helena’s blood turns to ice. “Please don’t tell me it’s Myka,” she whispers.

“It’s Claudia,” Mrs. Frederic answers.

“Claudia is the next Caretaker?”

“Yes.”

Helena doesn’t know if that is better or worse.

“I am telling you this,” Mrs. Frederic continues, “because I believe she will need some guidance when the time comes. Claudia will be a marvelous Caretaker, but she lacks the nuance the job sometimes requires.” Mrs. Frederic smooths down her skirt. “The Warehouse has operated on its own for too long. It is time we forged alliances, and I’d like your help with that.”

“Well, am I helping you or am I helping Claudia?”

“In the short term, you are helping me. In the long term, you are helping Claudia and every successive Caretaker. It is the 21st century, Helena Wells, and you are making history once again.”

“Well, when you put it that way…” Helena quips. “Does this absolve me of the need to meet with the Regents?”

“Unfortunately, no. You are still an employee of this Warehouse and they do still run it. Formalities must be observed.”

“Oh, this meeting is merely a formality then? Or am I once again in danger of losing my home?”

“If you were, Helena, you’d already have lost it.”

Helena rolls her eyes. “Comforting.”

“It should be.”

Helena turns and leans her back against the railing. “When do they want to see me?”

“Whenever it suits them, I suppose. Probably sometime next week.”

“And until then? Shall I while away the hours doing inventory under Arthur’s begrudging instruction?”

“Yes.” Mrs. Frederic ignores Helena’s unimpressed scoff. “In fact, I’d like you to find ways to work more closely with Artie.”

“Why?”

“Artie has not been himself since the fiasco with Sykes.”

“Irene, _no one_ has been themselves since the fiasco with Sykes.”

Mrs. Frederic smiles. “Humor me anyway. And please don’t share this with anyone.”

“Even—”

“Yes. I won’t bind you to silence forever, Helena. Just for now.”

“For now,” Helena nods.

/

“How are things back at HQ, oh restless one?”

Helena smiles. “Hopelessly stagnant,” she tells Claudia. “Pete has brief moments of self-induced catastrophe, but I have not saved him nearly enough to stave off the boredom.”

“Don’t go getting any ideas, missy,” Myka warns. “That’s my partner you’re talking about.”

“Oh, I’d never let any real harm come to him,” Helena dismisses. “Just enough discomfort to make the day a little more interesting.”

“And suddenly I’m glad we’re all the way in Tennessee,” Claudia teases.

Helena grins. “You are not, you little urchin. How is the hunt going, by the way?” Helena props her head on her fist and gazes at Myka. “Your eyes are stormy, love.”

“That’s because we still haven’t found whatever’s affecting this town.”

“Hang the treasure,” Helena retorts playfully, “it’s the glory of the sea that has turned my head.”

Claudia wrinkles her nose. “Say what?”

“She’s quoting Stevenson at me,” Myka laughs. “How long have you had that one up your sleeve?”

“A skilled magician never reveals her tricks.”

“That would require a skilled magician to actually pull off a trick, which is impossible when her audience is filled with so much forethought.”

“Is that all you’re filled with, darl—”

“Aaaand, back to the artifact!” Claudia interrupts.

“Alright,” Helena smirks. “Back to the artifact. Have you come across anything that would narrow my search?”

“Pens.”

“Felt-tip or marker?” Helena jokes.

“Fountain, actually,” Myka answers, lips quirking in that delicious half-smile of hers. “We think the guy using it is an agent—”

“Federal or state?” Helena asks as she makes notes.

“Your marvelous brain works better when you have all the information, Helena.”

“Yeah, so stop interrupting, H.G.,” Claudia adds. Helena makes a show of pushing aside her notebook and pencil and folding her hands on the desk before assuming an expression of committed attention. “Cute,” Claudia remarks. “Anyway, he isn’t that kind of agent. He’s the kind that represents actors and artists and whatever poor saps he can sucker into signing a contract.”

Wheels start turning in Helena’s mind. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. We think the pen has some kind of mind control properties; the victims were doing very uncharacteristic stuff right before he made them use it.”

“How did you find that out? I thought all of the victims were without friends or family.”

“They are,” Claudia replies. She looks down. “Another one came into the hospital while we were talking to a couple doctors.”

“Apparently it takes a while to kick in,” Myka explains.

“Did you at least find out this man’s name before—?” They both shake their heads. Helena nods sadly. “Right, well then I shall put my researching skills to their best use. Come home soon and try not to get charmed.”

“Whammied, H.G.,” Claudia corrects. “The term is ‘whammied’.”

“I have given into calling it a ping for efficiency’s sake. I will not concede the delicacy of charm.”

“Oh, gross; Myka, you’re swooning.”

/

Helena finds far more research on pen artifacts than she thought she would. None associated with her, which also bothers her more than she thought it would. She thinks this without really thinking, which no doubt precipitates the large pang of humiliation that lasts far longer than she wanted it to (but just as long as she thought it would.)

Myka could come home this very second and it wouldn’t be soon enough.

Most of these pens were used to compose or sign important historical documents. Helena would need an entire ream of paper to catalogue all the pens associated with the Catholic Church. There are more than a few that belong to prominent authors as well, usually those who perished in unfortunate or mysterious ways.

(Helena at first supposes that is why none of her things have found their way to the pen aisle—she has risen from catastrophe too much to be destroyed by it anymore. She also remembers that there is indeed an entire aisle dedicated to her filled with things that have nothing to do with pens or books because they have nothing to do with her stories. She was not the writer.

Helena keeps a sharp eye out for Charles’s name after that.)

She spends long hours down there, reading about pens that will destroy cities or enable genocide. It feels wrong that they should have such power. At least the Minoan Trident felt heavy in her hands. These she could wield with merely two fingers. The temptation is no longer there, but Helena feels the danger on a more visceral level.

She is aware that some artifacts have downsides that affect both the user and the victim. She hopes that whatever this artifact is, it is twisting the man using it into a being capable of committing vile deeds.

Her artifact was not one of those. That is how she knows it will be easier to cope once he is caught, and he will be caught because Myka is on the case and she is not one to suffer failure.

At the end of the day, Helena has very little information and a lot of time to think about how failure is not as impossible as she would like.

/

Myka calls around eleven, catching Helena in the middle of organizing her thoughts. The notes she makes for every case are indecipherable to anyone but her or Myka. Arthur complains about it at least twice a day.

“Hello, Myka,” she smiles as she pushes her papers aside.

“Is that going to be your catchprase?”

Helena furrows her brows in confusion. “Hello is a common greeting, as I recall.”

“Yeah, but you never just say hello. You always say ‘Hello, Myka.’”

“It seems your name was made to fit around my lips; I’m hardly one to deny them the pleasure.”

“So I’ve noticed,” Myka smirks.

“Was the rest of your day a success?”

“Well, we found the agent. I mean, we know his name and we found his place. He’s still in the wind, along with whatever pen he’s got. What about you?”

“The amount of information to wade through was more than one person could handle. I’m going to focus my efforts on pens involved in treaties tomorrow—that is, if Arthur was thoughtful enough to categorize them like that. His organization leaves a lot to be desired.”

“I’ve been saying that for four years. I wouldn’t count on anything.”

Helena stifles a yawn and settles into bed. “Did you know I found the pen used to write _The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_?”

Myka grimaces. “Ooh, yeah, that was a really not-fun case. That one turns you into a giant monster. Pete almost got whammied trying to nab it.”

“I’m not surprised something mystical came out of that story; Robert was quite deranged while writing it.”

“You read it before it was published?” Myka asks.

“Indeed; I even made a few corrections to it. I must say, the first draft was wildly different to the final version.”

“I thought his wife read all of his works.”

Helena laughs, remembering the pair of them fondly. “Fanny had quite a capable mind but Robert was too adulterous for her to be that committed. Actually, history will tell you quite differently, but Robert was not the only philanderer in that marriage.”

“Was there anyone in the 1890s that you hadn’t slept with?”

“Do you know, Wolly asked me that very same question on the Trumpet case.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“Oscar Wilde,” Helena grins. “I see now why that was a fruitless endeavor.”

“You didn’t see it then?” Myka grins. “I thought his trial was pretty big news.”

“It was,” Helena answers. “Then again, I am extremely charming. I never accept things on face value, darling. It makes life so much more inviting.”

Myka laughs and Helena does too, powerless against her favorite smile. They chat for a long while, battling fatigue and the knowledge of the Warehouse. (It’s something that never goes away, no matter how long you’ve been working there.) Eventually, Myka’s eyes start to droop and Helena catches her glancing at the button that would end the call.

“Myka,” she says before either one of them falls asleep. “I’m afraid I have a rather silly proposition for you.”

“Almost all of your propositions are silly,” Myka counters sleepily.

Helena smiles, but not wide enough to quell her nerves. “Yes, well, I had quite a few thoughts during my research today. Not surprisingly, many of them involved worrying over what might happen were you to fall victim to this artifact, or any others we encounter in the future.”

“Helena—”

“Warehouse policy has not changed much in the century since I was first employed. I understand the rules about disclosure. Christina would have been my one when she reached her sixteenth birthday. And now…” She trails off, unsure how to express herself in a few words when she is feeling enough emotion to comprise thousands of them.

“And now?” Myka prompts.

“I could not bear the thought of anything happening to you,” Helena admits softly. “There is little I can do to protect you from here, but I can still take comfort from you. It is lonesome at night, falling asleep without you next to me. That is my silly proposition.”

Myka smiles and positions her Farnsworth as she climbs into bed. Helena has a perfect view of her face as she lies down. It is an adjustment, working at the Warehouse, but not an insurmountable one. Love will always find a way.

“That’s not silly,” Myka murmurs. “I’ll even leave the light on for you.”

“Claudia won’t mind?”

“Stop worrying and go to sleep, Helena. I’ll be here.”

/

Helena wakes the next morning to a lovely view of the back of Myka’s head and the sound of her slightly ruffled breathing.

Comforts have not changed much in the last century, either.


	4. In the Mood

**and i said, 'hey baby, it's a quarter to three.**  
 **there's a mess of moonlight, won't you share it with me?'**

**.**

Myka hates Tennessee.

She hates it because it’s hot and muggy, but mostly she hates it because it’s not South Dakota. She’s never felt a huge pull to the giant wasteland, but it has three people she’d rather be with right now. But Claudia could probably benefit from some time away from the Warehouse, plus they have an artifact to find, and so Myka endures.

There’s a rule against using Farnsworths for anything but official Warehouse business. Myka has followed these rules for three years.

The Regents can deal with it if she bends them for one little case.

/

“Man, this blows,” Claudia complains on the second day. They’re getting nowhere; there are four victims and they don’t seem to have any connections nor any clues as to how they got into comas in the first place. They also don’t have any friends to talk to. Myka has been a federal agent for long enough to really hate cases like this. They always seem to come up at the most inconvenient times.

“You’re the techie; research is your thing,” Myka mutters into her stack of files, which are proving to be just as successful as the stack Claudia dropped on the table in frustration.

“Research is my thing when I can actually do research. These people have no connections, their social networking sites are a bust, and they didn’t get attacked at any of the same places.”

“We’ll figure it out eventually.”

Claudia plops down next to her and huffs. “Why are you being so chill about this?”

Myka picks up a folder from her stack because even though she has an excellent memory, she also likes to have evidence to back her up in case of a (very rare) lapse. “Edith Wellsner, the first victim,” she says, handing the folder to Claudia. “She’s been in a coma for two weeks without any progress or deterioration.”

“That doesn’t sound like a good thing.”

“It isn’t, but it isn’t bad either. These people are falling into comas and then just staying there. They’re not getting worse. Hasty information isn’t good information, Claud. We can take a little time.”

“Time is the problem, Myka. The longer these people sleep, the harder it’s gonna be to wake them up.”

Myka closes her folder. “Actually, that’s not necessarily true. Some people heal better in really deep comas. I was pre-med once,” she explains when Claudia furrows her brows.

“Yeah but that’s by normal-medicine standards. This isn’t normal medicine, this is all mystical and artifacty.”

“Look, Claud, we’ll neutralize it when we can like we always do, but we need information first. We can’t just rush to the hospital and ask comatose people to tell us what happened.”

“Yeah, but I can’t just sit here and not do _anything_! We’re Warehouse agents, man; we should be able to fix things other people can’t fix.”

The ball finally drops and Myka abandons all pretense of talking about work. “Claudia…”

“Steve ran out of time,” Claudia mutters.

“You fixed him,” Myka reminds her softly.

“Not right away.”

“If you’re looking for assurance about how to deal with time, you’ve asked the wrong Warehouse agent,” Myka says, trying to ease the tension. “I did run away, you know. At probably the worst time ever.”

“Yeah, but—” Claudia sighs and picks at the edge of the table. Myka has to smile because, minus all the thumb rings and hair dye, Claudia is the spitting image of the broody teenager Myka used to be. “I’ve had to drag two brothers out of decidedly not-alive states of being. It doesn’t get any easier.”

Myka shrugs. “Nothing does.”

“Do you ever notice how all of your pep talks are kind of depressing?”

“Do you want me to hug you and tell you everything’s going to be okay?” Claudia scowls and Myka immediately shakes her head. “I don’t mean that in a mocking way; I’m actually asking. If you want me to do that, I can. I can also give you useful advice. Your choice.”

“Can we just not think about work for a little bit?”

“Okay.”

“And I’m going to turn on some stupid police drama that you probably hate but that’s always on the hotel channels.”

“Okay.”

“And I’m going to order the most expensive dessert off the room service menu.”

“Okay.”

“And also a bottle of champagne.”

“Not okay.”

“I had to try.”

“Just don’t pick one of the _Law and Orders_ , okay? Those things are so awful.”

/

(“This is ridiculous. You know, just because a man and a woman are professional partners doesn’t mean they want to have sex with each other. I’d have slapped that guy six times by now.”

“How many professional partners have you had, Myka?”

“Two.”

“And how many of them have you slept with?”

“Claudia!”

“One, you say? One, I hear. Batting .500; big leaguers would kill for those stats.”

“You’re dangerously close to crossing a line there, Claud.”

“I think it would be so much easier if there were no lines at all.”

“No lines?”

“Yep.”

“Hm. Okay, tell me—how did it _really_ feel, losing your brother to an interdimensional limbo for twelve years and not having anyone around to believe you?”

“Hey!”

“Don’t jab if you can’t take it.”

“You’re not playing fair.”

“I’m playing by your rules.”

“Have you seen this dessert menu? People in Tennessee eat some gross stuff. Talk about clogging your arteries.”

“Why, what do they— _ooh_.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What are you getting?”

“Nothing.”

“What are you—hey!—funnel cake?”

“ _Fancy_ funnel cake.”

“Funnel cake!”

“Don’t tell Pete.”)

/

Myka wonders how Helena is keeping busy, because she definitely can’t be doing inventory all the time. Helena might be a lot of things in this life, and in another she would be even more, but not one of those things is a librarian.

The answer comes four days into their search, when Helena calls late at night with reams of research on various pens. Myka jots down the names of ones that sound promising and sends Claudia off to dig up anything she can on them. It helps to have someone impervious to sleep on their team; long past are the days where Myka would willingly pull an all-nighter to find answers.

So she leaves Claudia to work in the lobby, promises not to deadbolt the door to their room, and watches Helena fall asleep through a Farnsworth. It isn’t the real thing, but Myka will take comfort where she can get it. They’ve waited long enough for each other.

Myka wakes the next morning to an empty room. She turns over, pleased at the fact that she hadn’t knocked over the Farnsworth in the middle of the night. Helena will never say a word, but Myka knows she flails sometimes. No one can be constantly graceful, no matter what their flattering girlfriends might say.

Helena is already awake, smiling into the screen as she rests her head on her hand and props herself on her side. “Good morning, darling.”

Myka mirrors her position and stifles a yawn. “Hey,” she smiles sleepily. “How long have you been up?”

“Not that long,” Helena shrugs.

Myka doesn’t buy it—she looks showered and alert, and Helena normally takes longer than a few minutes to progress past ‘grumpy’. “Long enough to do some research?”

“Well, yes, that long.”

Myka laughs and sits up. “Hit me with the highlights while I get dressed.”

“I think I’d rather watch.”

Myka leans down and makes a show of turning the Farnsworth away from her. “Your research?” she prompts.

“Yes, alright.” There is a rustling of papers as Myka rifles through her suitcase. “As I said before, there are far more pen artifacts than I was expecting. The selection got smaller when I narrowed my search on pens used to sign treaties, but not by much.”

“But you have a few suspects,” Myka continues as she pulls on her pants.

“Yes, though my instincts are pointing toward one in particular. What do you know about John Foster Dulles?”

“John Foster Dulles, like the Secretary of State under Eisenhower?”

“Exactly. Before he was Secretary of State, however, he co-wrote the War Guilt Clause of the Treaty of Versailles. I believe this pen belonged to him.”

Myka straightens her shirt and focuses the Farnsworth back on her. “I don’t like the sound of that,” she frowns.

“You shouldn’t,” Helena sighs. “This seems to be one of the more volatile artifacts we’ve seen lately.”

“How does it work?”

“Well, there isn’t very much information on it, but from what I can gather, it is imbued with the general properties of a treaty—that is, to broker a compromise between two parties—only it seems to have absorbed the rather nasty retribution surrounding Article 231 as well.”

“Okay, so considering the victims we’ve encountered were anything but peaceful, you think this pen allows whoever’s using it to control people?”

“In short, yes. That seems too simple to explain everything you’ve reported, but I have a theory. Most of it is mere conjecture—”

“—but your conjecture is correct most of the time,” Myka finishes, “so I’ll bite.”

Helena smiles. “By all accounts, Dulles regretted writing the clause. It required Germany to take the bulk of the blame for World War I and pay for it with money they didn’t have. I think this guilt bled into the pen. I believe it binds itself to one person and feeds off of their temper, much like that nasty chain Arthur had trouble with in Russia.”

“But that sounds like it would only affect the agent.”

Helena shakes her head. “No, darling, do you remember the chain? Or even that damned riding crop Sykes favored? They obeyed one user, but they allowed that person to use them against others. I think somehow, your agent, Mr.—”

“Swinson, Eric Swinson.”

“—Mr. Swinson is coercing these poor people to use the pen and then forcing them to do whatever he wants. And I think it is taking a terrible toll on him, one that he will feel in full force when this pen is neutralized.”

“You inferred all of this from research?”

“That Article is nothing but vengeance. I know a thing or two about the feeling.”

Myka blushes and averts her eyes. One of these days, she and Helena are going to have a very long talk. “You haven’t seen Claudia this morning, have you?”

“I woke a little over an hour before you, so unless she came and went before then, she hasn’t been in your room.”

Bells start ringing in Myka’s head, but she doesn’t let her worry show on her face. “Okay; she probably fell asleep in the lobby. I told the front desk guy to keep an eye on her. I’m gonna go down and find her and I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Alright. Good luck, Myka.”

Myka smiles as convincingly as she can. Helena probably isn’t fooled.

/

Claudia isn’t in the lobby and the front desk clerk isn’t the same as the one from last night. Myka’s stomach plummets.

She flashes her badge and talks the stuttering kid behind the counter into letting her watch last night’s security footage. She watches as she and Claudia part ways—Myka disappears toward the elevators and Claudia seats herself at the end of a row of chairs with her back to the camera. She stays there well past four in the morning; Myka knows how she gets into a pseudo-fugue state when she tries tracking someone down.

About twenty minutes to five, a man comes into view and takes the seat next to Claudia. He makes a show of pulling a lot of different things from his bag—books, a laptop, his phone. Myka doesn’t see a pen anywhere in that mess but she’s sure it’s there. It has to be, because three minutes later, Claudia jots something down on a slip of paper, and fifteen seconds after that she leaves with the man.

Myka backs the tape up to the first time the man shows up. She freezes on an image of his back—his face may be obscured but his bag is very distinctive. She taps on the screen and turns back to the hotel employee. “Have you seen this guy before?”

The clerk shakes his head. “We get a lot of foot traffic…”

“Were there any transactions between 4:40 and 4:50 this morning?”

The clerk does a search and frowns apologetically. “No, sorry.”

Myka runs a hand through her hair and plays the tape back again, looking for anything that might give her a lead. He walks, he sits, he sifts through his backpack, he— _he drops a grocery bag._

“Is there a convenience store near here?”

“There’s a Walgreens right around the corner,” the clerk answers. Myka is out the door and dialing Helena’s frequency before he can finish speaking.

“Calling so soon? Have you missed me, dar—”

“Helena, he’s got Claudia.”

“Sorry?”

“Swinson,” Myka says, storming into Walgreens. “He kidnapped Claudia, used the pen on her. Hold on.” She flashes her badge at the cashier and the customer he’s serving, and pulls out a picture of Swinson. “Have you seen this guy today, came in maybe two hours ago?”

The cashier squints at the picture. “Maybe…” he hedges.

“He was wearing a bright orange backpack—”

“Oh yeah!” The cashier snaps his fingers. “He bought a pack of peanuts and some roach killer.”

Myka barely utters her thanks before swooping out the door, opening the Farnsworth again. “Helena, I need you to be Claudia.”

“How?”

“Swinson picked up some pesticide; he’s got to have a bug problem and we know it isn’t at his house or his office because Claudia and I both visited those two locations. So whatever he does with this pen, he’s got to be doing it somewhere.”

“I fail to see how I can be of help.”

“Hack into local pest control services, cross-reference their records with anything related to Swinson…”

Helena hesitates. “Myka, I’m not sure I know how to do that.”

“Claudia does it all the time. You’re her little protégé; I bet you can figure it out.”

“I’m _her_ protégé? Darling, I have at least a hundred and twenty years on the girl; I think you’ve got the order reversed—”

“Helena!”

“My apologies,” Helena murmurs. “Let me see if I can’t work something out.” She focuses her attention on her computer, talking sporadically and absently with Myka as she types. “I don’t see any properties in his name, nor any close-by hotel or motel reservations. Does he have any aliases?”

“I don’t know,” Myka sighs. “We haven’t come across any.” Myka looks up and racks her brain for any references he might use for a pseudonym. “His brother’s name is Donald; his business is on Turner Drive; he has the entire collected works of Agatha Christie in his home office—”

“Got it,” Helena interrupts. “Eric Marple ordered an exterminator to his flat on Keating Avenue. Four blocks west of your hotel, number 24.”

“Thank you, Helena.”

“Myka, if he’s got the pen when you get there—do you know what the opposite of guilt is?”

“Pride?”

“Indifference.”

Myka frowns as she closes her car door. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying this man is dangerous and I’d very much like both you and Claudia to come home in one piece. Please, _please_ be careful.”

/

(Myka is always careful. That’s why she’s partners with Pete, because he isn’t. She is always careful and she knows that this case could have gone the exact same way had Pete come with her. She knows that Claudia is an actual agent now and she doesn’t need to be coddled.

But Pete isn’t here with her, Claudia is the one who got kidnapped, and Myka will never stop being protective.

Sometimes caution is overrated.)

/

Swinson’s apartment is too quiet when Myka gets there. She expects to hear Claudia yelling, but she doesn’t. It only makes her walk faster.

She finds them in a room on the second floor; Claudia is sitting at a desk, her back to Myka. Swinson stands up as soon as Myka walks in. Myka immediately draws her Tesla.

“Careful, Agent Bering,” Swinson smirks. Claudia’s head twists to the left but she doesn’t turn completely around. “You wouldn’t want poor Claudia here to do anything drastic.”

“Claudia, can you hear me?” Myka asks, her eyes still trained on Swinson.

“Yes,” Claudia answers.

“Can you move?”

“No.”

Myka advances on Swinson. “Why are you doing this?”

“I wouldn’t be so cavalier,” he advises. “Not when I have control over your friend.”

She stops in her tracks and lowers her Tesla. “Okay. Let’s talk for a bit.”

“Better make it quick—Claudia is about to accept a very lucrative job offer.” Myka sneaks a glance at Claudia, who is holding the pen poised over some kind of contract. “Her computer skills are wildly marketable.”

“You already have clients,” Myka points out, hoping to distract him. “Why do you need one more?”

“Talent dries up, Agent Bering. My business is losing money and I’m always on the lookout for more potential.”

“You’re losing money? Edith Wellsner just signed a three-book deal with a huge publisher. You’re the one who referred her.”

“I can’t put all my faith into one person.”

“So you found the pen and realized what it could do,” Myka infers.

“It’s been a boon,” he admits. “I was at the end of my rope.”

“There were always other ways to succeed, Eric.”

“Hey, I’m an agent with wonderful connections and wonderfully mediocre clients—what else was I supposed to do?”

His words are defensive but his eyes are desperate and tired.

“Eric, it might take you a while to thank me for this, but you’re gonna wake up feeling like shit tomorrow.”

“What?”

Myka punches him.  She doesn’t have to check to know that he’s out cold.

“Myka? Are you okay? Did you just punch him?”

Myka steps over Swinson and stretches a purple glove over her hand. “Yeah, he’s down for the count. Is that the pen?”

Claudia tips it forward a little. “Yep, good ol’ puppet-maker.” She hands it over as Myka reaches for a static bag.

“It’s a fountain pen,” Myka frowns.

“Yeah, so?”

“So fountain pens need ink. Where’s he getting the ink?”

“I don’t know—a bottle, a vat, a _drum_ of ink? What’s the difference; neutralize me, please.”

Myka stands up and looks around the room, searching for a bottle of ink. “The difference is that if it was just the pen that affected people, he wouldn’t need his clients to sign anything. When he got you at the hotel, why did you go with him?”

“I—I don’t know. It just seemed like a really good idea at the time.”

“What were you doing right before you left?”

“I was trying to find out where he might be; I went to—” She gasps. “I went to jot down an address.”

Myka nods, expecting the answer. “Right, so he switched pens and controlled you. We need that ink.”

“Okay, well, there’s an office on the first floor, second door on your right when you come down the stairs.”

Myka stops in front of Claudia, smiling in surprise. “How’d you notice that under the influence of an artifact?”

Claudia blushes and tries not to look too pleased with herself. It doesn’t work. “I’ve been working on that memory trick you taught me.”

Myka laughs and fights the urge to ruffle Claudia’s hair. “Be back in a second,” she promises.

The bottle of ink is on a desk right where Claudia thought it might be. Myka jogs back up to the second floor, intending to neutralize them together. It might not be necessary, but after watching Poe’s pen and notebook almost kill her dad, Myka isn’t taking any chances.

The pen is reluctant to leave Claudia’s hand, but Myka pries it away and drops everything in the bag. It flickers and sizzles and even though she knows that means something was dangerous, Myka is grateful for the sparks. That means another job is done.

Claudia jumps up with her arms stretched over her head. “Hey, I’m me again!”

“Good to hear it; Helena was a pretty poor substitute.”

“Are you saying I’m better than H.G.?”

“Helena’s the one who found this place.” Myka shrugs. “You could have found it faster.”

Claudia smiles and knocks her shoulder into Myka’s. “Yeah, well, tell her thanks anyway. Although you guys do seem to be a curse for me. First you turn me into a human lava pool, and now this.”

Myka wraps an arm around Claudia and gives a big squeeze as they leave the apartment. “Well, you might be stuck with us for a while, so get used to it.”

“No fair; Pete doesn’t have to get used to being whammied all the time.”

“Look, let me tell you who really gets whammied when Pete and I work together…”

/

Claudia sleeps on the flight back home. More than once, Myka is tempted to raise the armrest between their seats and tug Claudia’s head onto her shoulder.

But the plane touches down in South Dakota before they know it and Pete is waiting for them by the baggage claim.

“H.G. is totally zonked,” he calls out as Myka stuffs their bags in the trunk. “Otherwise she’d be here.”

Myka slides into the front seat. “It’s okay. I like seeing you just as much, Pete.”

“Really?”

“Maybe."

Pete laughs and starts the car. “Heard you had some fun, Claud,” he says, peering at her through the rearview mirror.

“You’ve got a wacky definition of fun.”

“Hey, maybe you can get another shirt made.”

“Nah, this one wasn’t lethal so much as totally creeptastic. Plus all the coma people woke up.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“I do have a question for you, though.”

“Shoot.”

“You know your favorite story about how Hammurabi’s tablet almost killed you?”

Pete takes a moment to glare at Myka. “How much did Myka tell you?”

“Everything.”

“Aw, man.”

/

Helena, as it turns out, is not as zonked as Pete suggested. Instead she’s in their room, sitting at her desk and finishing paperwork by candlelight.

“You know, there are these wacky things called lamps…” Myka teases from the doorway.

Helena barely moves except to prop her head on a fist. “Lamps are not romantic,” she counters.

Myka rests her chin on the top of Helena’s head, letting her arms flop loosely over her shoulders. “Are you trying to seduce me, now?”

“I should hope I don’t need to try,” Helena smirks. She finally looks away from her forms and smiles. Myka thinks she looks beautiful at every angle. She lets Helena know with a kiss.

“How was your flight?” Helena murmurs.

“Boring. Claudia slept; I didn’t.”

“Would you like to?”

“Sleep? No way. You lit candles. You have plans. What are they, open up the curtains for some dessert and dancing by the moonlight?”

Helena twinkles a laugh. “I have no plans, darling. I merely prefer the softness of a candle. And I know how dancing has devolved these days. I certainly have no plans to do any of _that_.”

“Not everyone dances like Pete,” Myka laughs. She untangles herself from Helena and pulls her gently from her chair. “C’mon. Dance with me.”

“There’s no music,” Helena protests. She smiles anyway.

Myka grins back. “What, the great H.G. Wells and her brilliant, creative, inventive mind can’t imagine a little music?”

Helena glares halfheartedly and grabs Myka’s hand. Myka wraps an arm around Helena’s waist and rocks them into a gentle sway. “See? Nothing like Pete.”

“It’s little more than nothing at all, darling.”

“Oh, stop being such a downer.” Helena bows her head in a laugh and Myka rubs softly at the small of her back. “Sorry I snapped this morning.”

“You were worried,” Helena assures as she sweeps a hair behind Myka’s ear. “It’s alright.”

“I just get nervous when Claudia’s in trouble.”

“I know, love. You don’t need to justify yourself to me.”

“Yeah, but—”

“I understand, Myka. More than you might realize.”

Myka pulls Helena even closer. “Okay.”

“Now, could you do me a favor and draw the curtains?”

Myka looks to her right and smiles—Helena has slowly steered them toward the windows. “You’re sneaky,” she smirks.

Helena rolls her eyes playfully. “Well, it seemed like such a good idea when you said it.”

Myka scrapes her nails with the lightest touch at the nape of Helena’s neck. “We’re going to be tired tomorrow.”

Helena kisses her until she forgets about the Warehouse completely.

“Clear your mind of work, darling. There is a whole sky full of moonlight waiting for us. Waste it with me.”


	5. You've Got That Thing

**you've got that kiss, that kiss that warms,**  
 **that makes reformers reform reforms;**  
 **'cause you've got that thing, that certain thing**

**.**

If she had any choice in the matter, Helena would never leave the B&B again. Or rather, she would never leave the B&B if she could also ensure that Myka stayed with her. There is a great pleasure in waking up next to Myka. The first time it happened, Helena was taken aback by the intensity of her happiness. Helena has always been expressive, but rarely is she sentimental. Myka turns her into wisps of smiles and flushed cheeks. Helena will endure the sentimental label (and many other things) for Myka.

Helena shifts closer to Myka on their bed. She takes a moment—to smile, to look, to love—before kissing her favorite spot on Myka’s neck. “Good morning,” she murmurs, knowing that Myka is awake even though her eyes are closed.

Myka laughs into her pillow, low and rumbling. “It’s going to be a great morning for both of us if you keep that up.”

“I am more than amenable to that.”

“We’d be late for work.”

“An insignificant detail.”

“Artie might not appreciate it.”

“I don’t care.”

“You care a little.”

“A _very_ little.”

Myka shimmies away from Helena and props up her elbow. “You know, someone less-informed might call you as stubborn as Artie is.”

“He’s the one who began my agency with a vendetta, darling.”

“Well, you had just killed his former partner and before that you were bronzed for over a hundred years.”

“A former partner who had stabbed him and left him to die, and who would have happily killed him and all of you, Myka. And I would like to point out that the mere act of bronzing someone does not ensure their guilt.”

“Oh, I assume you’re referring to yourself?”

“I am a model example of many things,” Helena smirks.

Myka smiles slowly, like a sunrise cresting shyly across her cheeks. “Yeah, well, Artie didn’t know that.”

“ _You_ did.”

“I wouldn’t have if not for you.”

“That’s entirely the point, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, so glad you’re seeing things my way.”

“No, I didn’t—” Helena chuckles and presses a kiss to the corner of Myka’s mouth. “We are using the same evidence to support two wildly different arguments, darling.”

“Life’s crazy like that,” Myka laughs. She laughs and laughs and Helena is still so close to her mouth. So she leans in until the laughs turn to kisses and no one is thinking about Arthur.

/

“You never did tell me what Artie had you doing while Claudia and I were away,” Myka says as they drive to the Warehouse.

Helena is irritated only for a moment. “Inventory and repairs, mostly; all of them exceedingly frustrating. Arthur would get along quite nicely with that pen.”

Myka turns her head and glares. “Don’t even joke about that, Helena. You know Artie’s not that cruel.”

“Well, he isn’t very welcoming either. The man has no proclivity for rehabilitation.”

“Are you joking?” Helena looks at Myka to find disbelief splashed very genuinely over her features.

“No, I’m being rather serious. It has been my experience that none of his intentions are reformative.”

“Has Claudia ever told you how she started working at the Warehouse?”

“Claudia? No. I thought we were talking about Arthur.”

“The next time she has a free moment, ask her about it.”

Helena rests her elbow on the passenger door, propping her chin up. “Why are you defending him? You’ve made no qualms about criticizing him before.”

“Yeah, well, I know all the facts. You don’t.” Myka reaches over the center console and grasps Helena’s hand. “Maybe I argue with Artie a lot, but he’s family and so are you, and—this is such a Pete thing to say—I’d really like everyone to get along.”

“For you, darling, I shall try.”

“Good enough for me.”

/

The Warehouse is quiet when they arrive, though all the requisite cars are parked outside, indicating they are the last ones in. Helena replays the events of the morning and thinks it’s only to be expected, though nobody else needs to know why they’re late.

Artie is at his computer, as always.

“Good, you’re here,” he says as the door to the umbilicus hisses shut. He holds out a stack of papers to both of them without ever looking away from his screen. “Here’s a list of things that need to be done. Pick some.”

The papers are actually two sets of lists with specifically tailored tasks for both Helena and Myka. All of these tasks put them on opposite sides of the Warehouse.

Helena frowns at Myka until she has the decency to blush.

She grabs a list and rushes down toward the Einstein aisle, where things might be complex but at least they’re intellectually stimulating. It’s a long way from Artie’s office, and no doubt Myka would advise her to use the zipline, but that harness smells and the line jumps too much. It also does not give her time to think, and Helena has a lot of thinking to do.

She thinks about why she has to play nice with Arthur when it is Irene who wants her help. She thinks about whether she really will accept Irene’s new job offer. Helena is not one to turn down a challenge, but this is a different sort of challenge than the ones to which she has grown accustomed. In her first life, Helena had no qualms about lying to achieve a goal—before Christina’s murder, her goals were well-intentioned, thus making her lies justified. But Christina has passed and this is no longer the world of Warehouse 12. Myka deserves more than secrets and charm.

Not even halfway to the aisle and already Helena is far too deep in her churning worries. So she sits. She sits at an intersection, propped up against a shelf and careful not to disturb anything. She pulls her legs to her chest and rubs her shins; Helena seems to get itchy when she is anxious.

This particular intersection happens to have a landing pad for the zipline—well, Arthur calls it a landing pad but it is little more than an X painted on the concrete. The landings are the main reason Helena never uses the zipline; her body may not show it, but it is almost a hundred and fifty years old. It cannot take the constant beatings the zipline would afford her. She reaches out a hand and traces angles and lines, running her fingers over well-worn paint and the almost-invisible layer of dirt and dust.

“H.G.? Whatcha doin’?”

“Contemplating reinforced rubber.”

There is a scuffle of boots against the concrete as Claudia squats down next to her. “You know, I’m usually pretty good about keeping up with your genius brain, but to that I say: qué?”

Helena smiles and looks at Claudia. “I think we need to improve these targets, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I’ve been saying that for years, but Cranky McGrumpsalot won’t listen to my awesome ideas. That still doesn’t explain why you’re on the floor, though…”

Helena stands up and dusts off the back of her pants. “I grew tired of walking.”

“You know, sometimes you’re science-cryptic and other times you’re cryptic like Mrs. Frederic—”

“Walk with me, won’t you?”

“Sure.” Claudia adjusts some of the artifacts and tools she’s carrying and falls into step next to Helena. “Where are we headed?”

“The Einstein aisle.”

“Eesh,” Claudia winces. “That’s a moody aisle on a good day.”

“Indeed. Here, let me relieve you of some of your treasures.”

Claudia smiles gratefully as Helena grabs a hefty toolbox and a box of spare lightbulbs. Helena is constantly fascinated by the girl; she clings so tightly to her Warehouse family and yet rarely asks for help with even the most mundane tasks. Claudia has found a pack, but she still acts as a lone wolf sometimes. If Helena could forget about genetics entirely, she might say Claudia got it from Myka.

“It’s still a rather long walk to our destination from here; may I ask you something, Claudia?”

Claudia peers out of the corner of her eye and frowns. “That sounds like your serious-voice.”

“I wasn’t aware I had one.”

“Liar.”

“Yes, alright, you’ve caught me out,” Helena smiles and slows to a stroll. “You know so much of my past and yet I know so little of yours. I’ve never heard the whole story of how you came under the employ of the Warehouse.”

“It’s kind of a long, twisty story.”

“Well, we have a bit of a walk ahead of us.”

“H.G. …”                                                                                                                                      

Helena sighs, wishing she had a free hand to run through her hair. “I had hoped to do this with more finesse, but I’m inquiring into your past at Myka’s insistence.” 

“You’re talking to me because Myka told you to? _Dude._ ”

“You misunderstand me; I always enjoy talking to you, Claudia.”

“Oh, I totally get that. But jeez, how whipped are you?”

“Sorry?”

“Uh, it’s—why is Myka telling you to ask me, anyway?”

“She is rather adamant that I repair my relationship with Arthur.”

“Wait, do you two even _know_ how to be anything less than hostile with each other?”

Helena rolls her eyes. “Very funny, darling. We have had civil conversations. I just don’t believe he’s as ready to forgive as I am.”

“ _Are_ you ready to forgive him?”

“No, which is why I’ve been sent to you, so please—regale me with your life before the Warehouse.”

Claudia stops and fiddles with her belt loops. “Listen, H.G., it’s not something I really talk about, not even with Artie or Myka or Pete. I mean, Steve, sure, but he’s got a free pass to my feelings because of that whole dead-sister thing.” Helena cocks her head at this new information and Claudia’s eyes immediately widen. “Oh god, oh man; don’t tell him I said that. Pretend you never heard it. That’s what _he_ doesn’t like to talk about.”

Helena smiles gently, placing a reassuring hand on Claudia’s wrist. “Claudia, we all have our baggage and that means we all know how to deal with it. I promise you, whatever is spoken between us shall stay that way.”

Claudia nods, though she doesn’t look as assuaged as Helena would like. “Yeah, no, thanks. I appreciate that. It’s just—well it wasn’t really until you and Myka that people really started believing in me, so it’s still kind of fresh, you know? Can I ask _you_ something?”

“Of course.”

“If I tell you about how I got to the Warehouse…can you tell me about your daughter? And I mean, I don’t mean it like _let’s trade secrets_ , but I just—I don’t want to just be your science buddy or someone you cheer up when I’m not feeling that awesome. I wanna, like, really get to know you and stuff—I mean, you don’t just have Myka; I can cheer you up when _you’re_ not feeling that awesome, if you want—”

“Claudia.” Helena puts down what she’s carrying and grips Claudia by the shoulders. “I have spent two lives needing Myka, even if I didn’t know it. But in this life, the one I share with you, what I need most is someone to take care of.”

Claudia smiles and though her eyes are shimmering, they do not spill over. “And vice versa?” she asks, her voice thick in spots and wispy in others.

“If you would be so gracious.”

“I mean, you know, if I _have_ to,” Claudia laughs.

She looks as though she’s going to give Helena a friendly shoulder shove. Helena pulls her in for a hug instead.

“Jeez, H.G. Be a little cheesier,” Claudia teases. She doesn’t mean it.

“There is nothing wrong with expressing emotion now and again.”

“Weren’t Victorians prudes?”

“Oh, darling, I was never a Victorian.”

“So my parents died when I was little,” Claudia extends after a beat.

“My condolences,” Helena murmurs.

“I barely remember them. It’s fine, H.G.”

“It is never fine. My mother passed on the eve of my twenty-seventh birthday, and I felt the loss as if I were still a child. So I offer my condolences.”

“Thanks.”

“You were raised by your brother, yes?”

“Yeah,” Claudia nods. “Joshua. You’d like him; he’s a mad scientist, too.” She flushes and shakes her head. “Sorry, bad choice of words.”

“It’s alright; I understood the sentiment.”

“Cool. Anyway, Artie was his professor before I even knew about the Warehouse, and he turned Josh onto Rheticus’s compass.”

“I’m certain no good came of that,” Helena remarks darkly.

Claudia scoffs. “Yeah, no kidding. He got stuck in some crazy time travel limbo and I got stuck in a madhouse.”

“Another poor word choice?”

“No, actually that one’s pretty literal,” Claudia mumbles. “We had a funeral for Josh because he just disappeared and that’s what people decide, right? Somebody leaves, they might as well be dead. And I just couldn’t believe it. Josh loved messing around with science but I knew he’d never abandon me. But I kind of internalized everything and I got to a really dark place, and then I started seeing Josh everywhere, so I checked myself into a psych clinic. I thought they could help.”

“Did they?”

“I still have nightmares about that place. It’s kind of funny in hindsight, I guess—I came out of the clinic crazier than when I went in.” Claudia laughs. It makes Helena want to cry. “But, long story short, Josh wasn’t actually dead and when he popped up he was really communicating from across limbo. So I tried to recreate his experiment with Rheticus’s compass only I couldn’t take it all the way to the end, so I recruited Artie’s help.”

“How did you even find him?” Helena frowns.

Claudia shrugs. “Oh, you know, four months in a psych ward with a genius intellect is more than enough time to locate a top secret warehouse and develop an intense hatred for the person who put your only family in an unreachable interdimensional space,” she expels in one breath. “I was pretty motivated.”

“You are a wonder, Claudia.”

“Yeah, Artie didn’t think so at first. I kind of kidnapped him and forced him to help me save Josh.”

“Forced him with what?”

“Handcuffs packing 20,000 volts.”

Helena looks at her walking companion, appraising her. “I believe our projects have been aiming too low, darling. You and I could do so much together.”

“Yeah?” Claudia grins. “Groovy.”

“I assume Arthur forgave you,” Helena continues.

“Yeah, you know, Gramps is one big marshmallow. He can’t stay mad at anyone for too long.”

“I beg to differ, darling.”

“Okay, yeah, but you killed his best friend. I mean, that’s a pretty big thing to forgive.”

“Both you and Myka seem to forget that James MacPherson had no qualms about collapsing the very structure of the Warehouse. He would have done great harm to the world, given the chance.”

“I know, H.G., but—”

“I don’t think you do know, Claudia. Arthur will never want to hear this, but I spent more than enough time with that man to get a measure of him. He was driven by greed and pride. MacPherson was more ruthless than Arthur will ever give him credit for. His aim was vengeance at its worst.”

“As opposed to the good kind of vengeance?”

“Vengeance is never good,” Helena whispers, “but it can be pure. MacPherson’s brand of revenge was corrupted and murky.”

“This is kind of a bad metaphor because Artie never would have killed MacPherson, but say you had learned who Christina’s killers were, only when you went to go…punish them, someone else had gotten there first.”

Helena does not have to think too hard about how she would feel in that situation. Christina’s death will always be as fresh in her mind as it was 113 years ago.

“I see your point,” she concedes.

“If you wanna get in Artie’s good books, an apology goes a long way.”

“I cannot apologize. I would do it again.”

“No, you wouldn’t, H.G. Come on. You’re better than that.”

“Killing MacPherson was not a good thing, but I do believe it was the right thing.”

“Please don’t say that.”

Helena stops in the middle of an aisle and faces Claudia, who will not look at her. “Claudia?”

“I know you’re good now,” Claudia sniffs, “but, _god_ , that was callous, H.G. That was the first dead body I’d ever seen and you were callous and scary. I don’t want you to be that person again.”

“I assure you I’m not. Myka would be devastated.”

“Yeah, she would. Hey, better metaphor!” Claudia looks up. “You killed Artie’s Pete. Apologize for that.”

“Well—”

“For god’s sake, H.G., you shot the man. Tell him you’re sorry for something.”

“Technically, he—” Claudia shoots her a glare so reminiscent of Myka that Helena immediately quiets. “Yes, alright. I suppose that was sneaky.”

“And you regret it.”

“I’m beginning to.”

“Good enough for me.”

/

Arthur, despite his propensity for solitude, is not an easy man to get alone. Usually, Helena can find him at his computer mumbling to himself about some new program Claudia has written that he will begrudgingly find useful in about a month. Today, Helena watches him mumble into nothingness. He is not scouring the database, and Helena knows what it looks like when he is searching for a case. It isn’t this. Today he is simply mumbling.

“Arthur?” Helena ventures, once she’s accomplished an adequate amount of tasks to delay Arthur’s yelling at least for a few hours.

“What?” He shoves something small and circular into his pocket before straightening up and looking around, like prairie dogs do when they sense a predator. His gaze finally falls on her. “Oh,” he grouses, narrowing his eyes. “You.”

Helena understands now what Irene was talking about the other day. Arthur is not himself. Helena knows him, more than she cares to, because there are always men like him, and they are always bothered by women like her. She is not amused by his cynical mutterings; she does not find his disdain for modern technology endearing. Helena would prefer that he didn’t gripe so much. She would prefer that he was more expressive in his appreciation for all of the agents, but especially for Myka and Claudia.

But Arthur is not all fault and fumble, and despite their tempestuous early interactions, Helena has grown to like the man in her own way. If nothing else, she appreciates him professionally. Warehouse 13 is run far more efficiently than Warehouse 12 was.

This Arthur, the one who extends her a very large kindness one moment and belittles her another, is not the one she knows. He is moody. He will always be moody. But his swings in temperament are waves, not reversals.

“Did you want something?” he sneers.

Helena draws in a breath and stifles at least seven sarcastic remarks. “Yes,” she replies in a measured tone. “I believe you are past due for an apology.”

“What?”

“I enabled you to get shot. I killed your former friend. I regret both of these things, Arthur. I am truly sorry.”

Arthur closes his mouth, which has dropped into an almost-oval, with a quiet click. His eyes flash with affection for one instant before suspicion settles in. “This won’t make me like you,” he huffs.

“Believe me, I have no delusions or hopes that it will. It simply needed to be said.”

“Well.” He drums a pen against his clipboard and looks at the floor. “Thank you.”

“You are welcome.”

Helena calls Irene on her Farnsworth as soon as Arthur is out of earshot. She is certain he would disapprove of their friendship.

“Helena, you are uncanny. I was about to call you myself.”

“Half of a person’s charm lies in her sense of timing.”

“What can I help you with?”

“Before you came to speak with me, Arthur said that you and Jane were stalling the Regents at his request.”

Irene hesitates for just a second before nodding. It is an important second. “Yes.”

“I assume his request contained some information about me that he considered evidence of my reformation. He must have said something that prompted you to believe in me.”

“I have always believed in you, Helena.”

“So you’ve said,” Helena replies. “Arthur hasn’t.”

“And now he does.”

“Only occasionally,” Helena corrects. “The rest of the time he is quite combative.”

“I presume that’s why you’ve called me.”

Helena sighs. “Something’s not right, Irene. I realize what you were saying the other day, but I’m no closer to defining it than you are.”

“You don’t need to be, Helena. I have reason to believe you’ll have ample opportunities soon to observe Artie at length.”

“Why, am I being reinstated?”

(She tries to keep the fear out of her voice. Irene watches her too closely.)

“The Regents would like to meet with you tomorrow. If all goes well, you’ll be reinstated on a probationary basis.”

Helena rolls her eyes. “Yes, because that worked so well the first time.”

Irene glares right back. “This time you have four people to keep an eye on you, and one person who will see the signs even if you don’t. You are past the point of proving yourself to your fellow Agents, Helena. The Regents have always been far more easily tricked.”

“You’ll get no argument from me there.”

“I thought not.”

“Am I required to go alone?”

Helena detects the wisp of a smile on Irene’s face. “The Warehouse depends on its team of agents, Helena. This is not a discussion about whether or not _you_ are ready to officially return to the Warehouse. This is a measure of how willing the Warehouse is to welcome you back. For all intents and purposes, work will stop until your fate is decided. Everyone must be consulted.”

“Not everyone was last time.”

“Precisely.”

“Careful, Irene; someone might accuse you of having a sense of humor.”

This time, Irene does smile.

/

Myka is waiting for her in the library. They’ve missed lunch and even afternoon tea, but Helena has learned that Myka is not as opposed to snacks as she would like Pete to think.

“So, the Regents, huh?” she says as Helena sits down. “Mrs. Frederic called a while ago.”

Helena passes her a plate of fruit. “Yes, apparently it’s time to meet my maker,” she frowns.

“You’re already working, Helena. What more can they really do?”

“They can make me talk.”

“That wouldn’t be a terrible thing,” Myka murmurs.

Helena slips off her shoes and settles into the sofa. “I would prefer not to do it in front of a court.”

“You’re not being tried, Helena,” Myka laughs. “Just questioned.”

Helena rests her cheek against Myka’s shoulder. “There’s a difference?” she quips, her words muffled by Myka’s shirt.

“There is,” Myka replies. “I promise.”

Myka smells of strawberries, and when she runs a comforting hand down Helena’s arm, Helena leans up until she tastes of them, too.


	6. Sing, Sing, Sing

**now you're swingin' while you sing.**   
**when the music goes around, everybody goes to town;**   
**just relax and take it slow.**

**.**

Myka and Helena wake up long before they need to. Myka’s first, setting coffee to brew while the hour on the clock is still early enough to count on one hand. Helena follows minutes later, completely dressed and looking more solemn than she was even in Yellowstone.

Today promises to be full of words. Myka sits with Helena at the kitchen table and offers her silence and a warm beverage.

Two cups later, and twenty minutes before they have to leave for whatever mysterious location the Regents have decided on today, Myka hears noise from upstairs.

“Took them long enough,” Helena grumbles.

“Why, are you itching to leave already?”

“No, but I could not stand being late.”

Myka smiles and finishes off the last of her coffee. Someone comes down the stairs—their footfalls are too light to be Pete, so Myka looks up expecting Claudia. She gets Steve instead.

“Steve?” Myka frowns. “What are you doing here?”

He opens the fridge and scrunches his eyebrows. “I live here?”

Myka shakes her head. “No, I mean why are you downstairs right now?”

“We’re leaving soon and I’d like to eat some breakfast because I bet the Regents are going to drag this thing out way longer than they need to.”

“You’re coming with?” Myka blurts.

Steve stills his glass of milk halfway to his mouth. “Uh, yeah? I work for the Warehouse, too. Mrs. Frederic said this was a team thing.”

“No, I—I didn’t mean it like that, Steve, I just…look, you met Helena for the first time a little over a month ago, and that was for about two seconds before you died. I can’t imagine they’re calling you as a character witness.”

Steve crosses his arms. “Maybe that’s exactly why. I can vouch for her without any personal bias.”

“I don’t know…”

“Irene did say everyone was going to be consulted,” Helena adds.

“She did?”

“Who’s Irene?” Pete yawns from the doorway, Claudia trailing behind him.

“Mrs. Frederic,” everyone answers in unison. Steve is the only one who doesn’t roll his eyes.

“No fair,” Pete whines. “H.G.’s all chummy with Mrs. F?” He turns toward Helena and scowls. “Do you have her cell, too? Do you guys have late-night chats about us?”

“Pete, quit being a jerk,” Myka chides. “This isn’t gonna be a fun day for anyone, least of all Helena.”

“Sorry; it’s not even seven, man. I need three coffees and a Red Bull to even come close to being functional this early in the morning.”

“If I give you some bacon, will you shut up for a few minutes?”

“Do the Browns suck?”

“I don’t know.”

“Gimme the bacon.”

Myka slides some onto a plate and turns back to Helena. “What did Mrs. Frederic say?”

“She said that when it comes to my fate as an agent, every member of the Warehouse team should be allowed to weigh in.”

Claudia huffs. “Gee, why couldn’t they have thought of that the first time?”

“I believe that’s the point, darling,” Helena replies.

Myka drums her fingers on the table, watching as the vibrations make Pete’s fork clack against the wood. “I still think there’s something fishy about this.”

“I’m not getting any vibes, Mykes,” Pete says between mouthfuls of food. “Or, well, not any more than I usually do with the Regents.”

“You get vibes from the Regents?” Steve asks.

“Yeah, I mean, I bet individually they’re okay people, like my mom. But as a group they’re totally hinky. They give me the willies.”

“Artie doesn’t like them either,” Claudia chimes in, as if that ends the discussion. It seems to, because Steve and Pete nod and settle into their chairs.

Myka still isn’t convinced but she doesn’t have time to ponder anymore. Leena appears in the doorway, adjusting her coat.

It’s time to go.

/

The first time Artie met with the Regents, they were in a diner just outside of Univille. When Myka and Artie found them a few weeks ago, they were holed up on the top floor of an office building guarded by security who would gladly shoot you if you breathed too much.

Today, Myka sits in an unmarked black car with windows so heavily tinted it might as well be nighttime. She holds Helena’s hand and memorizes the turns, just in case. They arrive at an old, battered building with broken windows and a rusty chain on the door. Myka is immediately on edge. She blames Pete; he’s made her watch too many mob movies ( _‘cause, Mykes, look—they’ve got your name literally all over them._ )

“Definitely vibing now,” Pete groans as he gets out of the car, stretching his back.

“Bad?” Myka asks.

Pete wiggles his hand noncommittally. “Eh, on the Lattimer scale it’s probably a 5.”

“Lattimer scale?”

Pete rolls his eyes. “Like the Richter scale but for vibes. Jeez Myka, I thought you were smart.”

He pulls her into a one-armed hug, so she ignores the urge to punch him.

They must look like an oddly intimidating bunch—everyone’s in suits and fancy shoes. Even Claudia threw on some slacks and a nice blouse Myka bought for her at the mall once (just in case, because eventually she’d need it.) If Myka saw these people walking toward her, she’d be impressed but she wouldn’t know why. It’s something she’s felt ever since she started working at the Warehouse.

Jane is the only one to give them a genuine smile. Mr. Kosan’s lips turn upwards, but they remind Myka of what she used to look like before the Warehouse, when she wasn’t really listening to people.

The building is an old warehouse, and four people scoff at relatively the same moment when they walk inside. It only seems logical that genius brains would simultaneously realize the inherent irony of the situation.

“What, no security guards this time?” Artie scoffs. No one answers. “Pie?” he continues. “I could go for some pie.”

“That’s enough, Arthur,” Mrs. Frederic murmurs. Myka catches Helena and Claudia stifling smirks. “If you’ll all follow me, we’ve set up chairs and tables.”

“Good, ‘cause this floor is super grody,” Pete mutters. Steve shoves his shoulder.

_Set up_ is a very loose term, Myka thinks as they file into the room. There are three tables for all the Regents and two tables for the agents, all with unforgiving folding chairs.

“Cozy,” Claudia quips.

“Is this gonna take all day?” Pete asks.

“It will take as long as it takes, Agent Lattimer,” Mr. Kosan replies.

“Yeah, but are you gonna feed us? My productivity tanks when I’m hungry.”

“Pete, you just ate,” Myka scolds.

“Okay, well I like to be prepared. Sorry, _mom_ ,” he drawls, rolling his eyes. Then he notices Jane. “Oh. Sorry, Mom. I mean—”

“Why don’t we get started?” Mr. Kosan interrupts.

“Yes, let’s.” Mrs. Frederic pierces Pete with a glare so icy even Myka gets chills.

“We all know why we’re here,” Mr. Kosan begins as they sit down. “Ms. Wells, it seems the Warehouse is constantly bending to fit your presence.”

“It isn’t my fault that it’s so pliable. Perhaps you should look into correcting that.”

Mr. Kosan pulls a handful of manila folders out of his briefcase. “We were remiss not to evaluate you on more rigid terms when you were first reinstated, so I’d like to start at the beginning.”

“Which one?”

He offers her a patronizing smile. “Your beginning with Warehouse 13.”

“I’ve already discussed this at length with Mrs. Frederic.”

“So you have. However, Mrs. Frederic is only one piece of a very large puzzle. She is not the final arbiter of your future with us.”

Myka settles a hand on Helena’s knee and gives her a calming squeeze. She shifts in her chair and relaxes her shoulders.

“Fine. Let’s begin.”

“You were bronzed in 1906,” he says, flipping through his papers, “because you became a danger to yourself and the Warehouse, a side effect of your daughter’s murder. Presumably, sometime in between her death and your bronzing, you began formulating a plan to use the Minoan Trident and decimate the world’s population.” No one says anything when he looks up. Myka chances a glance at Helena—there is cold fury behind her eyes. “How soon after you were de-bronzed did you start acting on this plan?”

“I think what you mean is, ‘How soon after de-bronzing me did James MacPherson give me the opportunity to act on it?’”

“I meant exactly the question I asked, Ms. Wells.”

Helena sighs. “The day after, I suppose.”

“The day after.”

“Yes,” Helena retorts, losing some of her composure. “I would have started sooner, but there was that pesky period of adjustment where my body learned how to be alive again.”

“And when did you decide to kill James MacPherson?”

(Myka tightens her grip.)

“When he smiled at me.”

“Ms. Wells?”

“Have you seen the man smile? He looked extraordinarily like a cod.”

“That seems a poor reason to kill him.”

“He was a far greater threat to the Warehouse than I.”

“I think everyone in this room would argue strenuously against that.”

“That is because you underestimated Mr. MacPherson.”

“He was no Walter Sykes.”

“He could have been worse than Walter Sykes. I granted you a favor.”

Mr. Kosan merely scribbles something on his papers and smiles.

“Why did you begin your campaign to return to the Warehouse?”

“I needed money and someone to teach me how to manipulate computers.”

“And you thought the Warehouse was the answer?”

“MacPherson had files on all of the Warehouse’s agents. I knew what Claudia was capable of.”

“Was she the only one you kept an eye on?”

“No. I followed every Warehouse case I could. I was a shadow to Pete and Myka more times than they realized.”

“How many times?”

“No more than a dozen. I started tracking them after they returned from Milan. International affairs are far too cumbersome.”

“Yet you only intervened at Tamalpais University.”

“Yes."

“Why?”

“Pete wasn’t Myka’s partner on the case. I thought he might be less receptive to my help after our little encounter in London.”

“So you assessed the emotional stability of the situation and altered your behavior.”

Helena bristles, tapping a finger on the table. “I acted exactly how any investigative agent is trained to act.”

“But your goal was a personal gain.”

“What exactly are you trying to determine, Mr. Kosan?” Helena challenges.

Jane chimes in before he has a chance to respond. “Why don’t we open the floor to the other agents, Adwin? We don’t need to dwell too much.”

“Fine,” Mr. Kosan concedes. “Agent Nielsen, you were—”

“No,” Helena protests. “I will not have a discussion of my future begin with the man who cannot let go of my past.”

“Helena,” Myka murmurs.

Helena snaps her head to face Myka. “I’m sorry, Myka, but I will not cater to these tyrants. Their brand of justice seems to require my humiliation, and I have already been dragged through all of my faults in excruciating detail. I don’t care if they take issue with the fact that these conversations were between Irene and me. I will not relive them again under the guise of penance.”

“Then you’ve shortened this discussion immensely,” Mr. Kosan says, his mouth set in a grim line.

“I’ve long since passed the point of listening to the Regents, Mr. Kosan. If that separates me from my work, then so be it. But if you think that I will flee the Warehouse you are sorely mistaken.”

“You are not in a position to bargain, Ms. Wells.”

“That’s interesting, because I was under the impression that this meeting was a less-than-formal affair, and now I’m being treated as though I’m a terrorist.”

“A terrorist with knowledge of the Warehouse could spell global devastation, as you’ve already demonstrated.”

“If we could move this meeting in a more productive direction, you would know that I desire anything but devastation these days.”

“How can we judge your transformation if we don’t have all the facts about your previous emotional state?”

“You would have all the facts if you bothered to consult Mrs. Frederic—”

Mr. Kosan slams his hand down on the table. “Mrs. Frederic does not have the final say in an agent’s placement at this Warehouse!”

“Hey, can we all chill for a sec, _please_?” Pete interrupts, raising his voice above the shouting. He looks at Mr. Kosan and points his thumb back at the door. “Dude, take a walk or something and quit wigging.”

“Pete…” Myka warns.

But Pete merely smiles as Mr. Kosan gets up and leaves the room. “And that, my friends, is how you defuse a situation. It’s a Lattimer thing; we’re all born knowing how to knock someone down a few pegs.” He leans back in his chair and smirks.

“Pete!” Jane barks. It startles him enough to make him lose balance and tip over.

“See?” he says from the floor. “I told you it’s genetic.”

“I’m sorry about Adwin, Helena,” Jane continues. “I think he’s still smarting about Yellowstone.”

Helena scoffs. “Well, clearly he and Agent Nielsen have a lot in common.”

“Careful, Helena,” Mrs. Frederic cautions.

Helena exhales and sets her shoulders. “I apologize, Arthur; that was insensitive.”

“It’s fine,” he huffs.

“Though I would like to point out that if people are so inclined to bear grudges against me, perhaps I’m not the problem.”

“As a person not holding a grudge, I’d like to second that,” Claudia chimes in.

“Must you all be so… _sassy_ today?” Artie growls.

Pete raises his eyebrows. “Okay, you started it with your pie thing, Artie. We’re just following the leader.”

“Yeah, for the first and only time—”

“Look, can we just start over completely?” Steve suggests. “Not to step on any toes, but we’re people, Mrs. Lattimer. You don’t have to interrogate us. We can just…talk.”

The Regents murmur their approval.

“Oh, sure, Steve says what I’ve been trying to say and you all listen to him because he’s a Buddhist.”

“ _Pete!_ ”

“Okay, okay.”

“We will need to ask you questions, Helena. But maybe we could start with some of the other agents first.” Jane continues only when Helena nods. “Claudia, you worked the case at Tamalpais with Helena. Were you scared of her?”

“Nervous, maybe, but not scared.”

“Did you feel unsafe?”

“No.”

“Why?”

Claudia sneaks a glance at Myka and blushes. “Myka was with me. She kind of proved she could hold her own—you know, when she was choking H.G.”

“And what about when you fell into the vat of toxic juice?”

“What about it?”

“Did you feel unsafe then?”

“Okay, well, there were tiny volcanoes under my skin, so—”

“I meant emotionally. All you knew about Helena was that she had been bronzed for being a danger to the Warehouse. Why would you trust her with your life?”

“Because I didn’t know how to save myself, and I wasn’t too jazzed about the idea of dying at nineteen.”

“Did you ever think of Helena as evil, or that she had amoral intentions?”

“Look, the first thing she ever did for me was save my life. I kind of think that makes you a good person, even if you do some bad things.”

“Bad things like Yellowstone.”

“Yeah, like Yellowstone. I tasered the hell out of Artie when he helped me save Josh and he ended up giving me a job. You can’t judge someone just based on one thing they did. That’s the easiest way to be wrong.”

“Helena was bronzed because she caused the death of a colleague, and when she was de-bronzed she killed a former agent almost right away. Would you say the Regents were wrong in their assessment of her character?”

“I…” Claudia shifts her worried gaze between Myka and Helena, her eyes pleading for them to tell her the right thing to say. They can only offer sad smiles.

“Yeah, I think they were wrong,” she finally decides. “That wasn’t the real, H.G. That was the sad H.G. This is—okay, this is gonna sound cheesy and childish, but the real H.G. is the one who helped me with my chem homework because I’m more of a physics girl and there’s only so much you can do with online classes. The real H.G. built stuff with me and let me teach her how to use a blender. If the Regents had met her, maybe they wouldn’t have ever been wrong.”

“So the real Helena exists in a place that the Regents haven’t seen.”

“The real H.G. exists in a place the Regents haven’t even _thought_ about. I mean, other than you. You’re hanging with us all the time.”

Jane smiles and folds her arms. “At Leena’s, you mean.”

“Yep, home sweet home.”

Jane smiles again, nodding and swiveling in her chair to face the innkeeper. “Leena, you probably have a unique insight into Helena’s mind.”

“I read auras, not thoughts, Jane.”

“No, I know. But that’s something you see that six other people don’t. What’s her aura like?”

Leena hesitates. “That’s kind of a personal question.”

“I know you’ve commented on Pete’s aura before.”

“Dude, you told your _mom_?” Claudia hisses.

“Everything kind of spilled out when I realized I could finally talk about work with her, okay; lay off me,” Pete spits back.

“That was different,” Leena continues. “Pete’s aura isn’t as tangled as Helena’s.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s impossible to talk about Helena’s aura without also talking about Myka’s.”

“Okay. We’ll come back to that, then.”

“Whoa, hold up,” Claudia interrupts. “I get a whole slew of questions and Leena gets _we’ll come back later_? No fair.”

“There’s a general organization to this conversation, Claudia, so yeah, we’ll come back later.” Jane addresses her son. “Pete—”

“You know I’m not a fan of answering questions, so can I just tell you what I think about H.G.?”

“Go right ahead.”

“Do you remember Ralph Brunsky?”

(Myka rolls her eyes and thinks that one of these days, Pete should find Ralph and give him the whole ‘intimidating federal agent’ spiel, just to get it out of his system.)

“Yeah, sure. You used to talk about him all time.”

“I talked about him because he was a tool. He kind of terrorized me the whole time we were in school together. But then Dad died and Ralph wasn’t really mean to me after that.”

“So, what—Helena is a reformed bully?”

Pete shakes his head. “No. I think sometimes you get so used to acting one way that it takes a really big thing to make you change. H.G.’s not the same as she was back at Yellowstone, and I’m really glad for that.”

“How do you know she’s changed?”

Pete flicks his thumbnail against the edge of the table. “She knows she’s got help if she ever needs it.” He leans across Claudia to look at Helena. “You know that, right? I don’t have any fancy words to make you really understand, but we’re your people.”

Helena grins and dips her head. “Yes, thank you, Pete. I know that deeply.”

Pete shrugs and looks back at Jane. “See? She knows. As long as she doesn’t forget that, Helena’s good with me. Now, can we break for lunch or something? I’m getting kinda twitchy.”

Jane chuckles and stands up. “Sure, I’ll call for some pizzas. Let’s meet back in an hour or so.” There is a cacophony of chairs scraping against concrete as everyone gets up and stretches. “Actually, Steve, there’s something the Regents and I would like to ask you,” Jane adds.

Myka frowns and watches him walk over, only to be immediately swamped by every Regent. She would love to stay and eavesdrop, but Pete is beckoning her over to where everyone else is huddled.

“Claudia found a really cool bit of scaffolding; let’s hang there before Artie starts yelling.”

“Pete, I’m standing right next to you,” Artie grumbles.

“So what you’re saying is I need to run really fast.”

“I’m saying I’m not having any more fun here than you are so there better be room for me up there.”

“Chill, Grumps,” Claudia teases. “This warehouse is almost as big as the real one; there’s gotta be room for you somewhere.”

They argue and walk away, Leena smiling next to Claudia. Myka catches Helena’s eye and smiles, too. She grabs her hand just because.

Pete shoves his hands in his pockets and sidles up next to Myka. “So, this is kinda intense, huh?”

“It certainly isn’t what Irene made it out to be,” Helena gripes.

“Yeah, I’m getting the feeling she’s not exactly in the Regents’ good books right now.” They walk in silence only broken by the occasional crunch of their boots against a pebble or random bit of debris. “You guys are okay though, right?”

Myka squeezes Helena’s hand. Helena squeezes back. If Pete could feel it, it would be more than enough of an answer. “Yeah, we’re okay,” Myka replies. “Why?”

Pete looks over his shoulder, then leans in close to both of them. “I have a feeling about Steve.”

“A vibe?”

Pete shakes his head. “No, just a normal bad feeling, not a vibe. Which kinda stinks, because vibes I know what to do with. This—I just don’t like it. I think you were right, Mykes. They’ve got something planned for him.”

“Yeah, but what? I mean, they barely interacted when Helena was Emily,” Myka muses. She squeezes Helena’s hand again and turns to her. “Right? There’s nothing they could make him use against you, is there?”

Helena simply smiles and pulls her forward. “I’d like to take full advantage of this break and not think about the bloody Regents or anything they’re planning.”

She walks too quickly for Myka to catch up and see her face. If she could, she’s certain she’d see that something is very wrong.

“Helena, do you know something?”

“I know that I’m extraordinarily hungry and Pete will eat all the pizza if we don’t hurry.”


	7. Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no i'm not bitter at never getting any depth to leena's character what are you talking about

**some argentines without means do it;**  
 **people say in boston even beans do it.**  
 **let's do it; let's fall in love.**

**.**

The pizza is gone long before the hour is up. Pete and Claudia keep everyone laughing, which Myka is more than grateful for. She catches Helena glancing over at Steve at least three times. Myka watches with her once; Steve has his hands on his hips and he keeps glaring at the Regents. She can’t hear a word they’re saying, but she’s sure Steve is fighting in Helena’s favor. Once this is all over, Myka might very well take everyone out for a round of ice cream, and this time she’ll tell Pete he can get as many toppings as he wants (even though they charge extra.)

“Steven looks angry,” Helena remarks beside her.

Myka reaches in the space between them and threads her fingers through Helena’s. “I think that’s a good sign. Steve’s got your back.”

“I know.” Helena exhales a deep breath and rests her head against Myka’s shoulder. “Myka, if they ask me uncomfortable questions, please don’t be upset with the answers I give. I can only answer truthfully, but I am not the same woman I was a year ago.”

“I know that.” Myka presses a kiss to Helena’s forehead. Her hair smells of jasmine, fresh and comforting. “What do you mean, uncomfortable questions? Do you know what they’re planning?”

“I have had a theory ever since you questioned Steven’s presence. But it looks like they’re ready to get started again, so we’ll have to see if I’m correct.”

Indeed, Jane beckons them down from the scaffolding and they all descend the ladder slowly. Pete gets to the floor first, extending a helping hand to everyone who follows. Myka takes it out of comfort more than necessity. She doesn’t always need it, but his chivalry is always appreciated.

The first thing Myka notices when they sit back down is that Mr. Kosan is back, having reclaimed his seat at the center of the table. The uneasy feeling in her stomach only intensifies when Steve finds them first, his face apologetic and sad.

“I’m sorry, Helena, I really am. I tried to get out of it, but—”

“It’s alright,” she placates. “I understand.”

Myka doesn’t. But she starts to when Steve drags his chair in between the Regent and agent tables, placing it so it faces Helena.

“I apologize for my outburst earlier,” Mr. Kosan begins. “As head of the Regents, I feel it is my duty to be present for this hearing, but perhaps I should not be the one to ask questions. Thankfully, Agent Jinks has agreed to be my proxy.”

“Very reluctantly agreed,” Steve retorts.

“Yes, well.” Mr. Kosan folds his hands on the table and looks at Helena. “I have given Agent Jinks a list of questions I feel you must answer before I can ask my fellow Regents to deliberate on your future with the Warehouse. Polygraphs can be fooled, Ms. Wells. Agent Jinks cannot. It would behoove you to answer truthfully, whether you want to or not. Agent Jinks, if you please.” He gestures to Steve, who frowns and opens a manila folder.

“I’m really sorry, Helena,” he says.

She nods. “I know.”

He takes a deep breath and looks at his packet of papers. “Do you believe killing is justifiable?”

“Yes.”

“In what context?”

“In self-defense, or to save the life of another person.”

“How many people have you killed?”

“Six.”

“Under what circumstances?”

“Two in the course of duty at Warehouse 12, my daughter’s three murderers, and James MacPherson.”

“And all of these deaths can be rationalized?”

“Yes.”

“Lie,” Steve murmurs.

“I had my reasons for killing all of them,” Helena protests.

“That does not mean they can be rationalized,” Mr. Kosan chimes in. “Tell me about your daughter’s killers.”

Helena stiffens in her chair. “They were three common thieves, and opportunistic to the core. When they discovered Christina and Sophie, they decided the easiest course of action that would ensure their escape would be to kill both of them.”

“But they failed to kill Sophie, as you were occupying her body,” Mr. Kosan continues.

“Yes.”

“Why couldn’t you protect your daughter?”

(Four voices ring out at once, and Myka has never felt so heartbroken and so reassured at the same time.)

“That’s such a bullshit question, man—”

“Dude, stop being a turd-bucket—”

“This is why no one wants to cooperate with you; you’re such a self-serving institution—”

“I don’t really even _like_ Helena and I would never ask that question—”

“Please,” Helena interrupts. “Thank you, everyone, for your concern.” She looks back at Mr. Kosan with eyes of steel. “There were three men and only one of me. I was overpowered. I am skilled at the art of self-defense, but they were not insubstantial men.”

“If you had not witnessed your daughter’s murder, would you have sought out her killers with such determination?”

“Of course I would have; she was my child.”

“How did you kill those three men?”

“Would you like a blow-by-blow account?” Helena snaps. “I remember everything.”

Mr. Kosan smiles but he doesn’t look amused. “Just an overview, please.”

“I rendered them unconscious, tied them up, dragged them to a remote building, and I beat them to within an inch of their lives.”

“And then what?”

“And then I left.”

“For how long?”

“Four days.”

“Were they alive when you returned?”

Helena averts her eyes. “One was. I made him wish he wasn’t. I granted that wish eventually.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

Helena’s head snaps up. “What?”

“Killing him—did you enjoy it?”

Her face flushes but she won’t look away from Mr. Kosan. “No,” she whispers.

Mr. Kosan turns to Steve. “Agent Jinks?” Steve doesn’t say anything, but Myka can read his face. She knows what he’s going to say. “Agent Jinks,” Mr. Kosan repeats.

A blush of red colors his cheeks and he looks at Helena helplessly. “Lie,” he mumbles.

Helena clears her throat and balls her hand into a fist, clenching and unclenching until she can speak. “I took satisfaction from it,” she admits, “but not pleasure. There is a difference, and it matters.”

“That is what we’re here to determine, Ms. Wells.” Mr. Kosan gestures for Steve to continue with his questions.

Steve clears his throat and flips a page. “Would you kill again?”

“If my life or the life of someone else depended on it, yes.”

“Whose life?”

Helena shrugs and lets her hands drop uselessly in her lap. “Any of my fellow agents. Any of the Regents. A little boy, caught in the crossfires of an artifact. There is no hierarchy for mercy, Mr. Kosan.”

“Would you torture for anyone?”

“No.”

“Would you murder for anyone?”

“No.”

“Is there anyone you deem to be more important than the Warehouse?”

“No.”

“Helena…” Steve sighs.

Helena looks down at her lap. She twitches her fingers against each other, and Myka wonders how fractured her mind is if there are already visible cracks in her otherwise confident exterior. “This is humiliating,” she mutters.

“It is necessary,” Mr. Kosan answers.

“It is not. I have already proven myself to all of my colleagues and at least one of yours. This is a spectacle to mend your wounded pride.”

Mr. Kosan leans forward, the fluorescent lights gleaming off of his shiny head. “Ms. Wells, is there anyone whose needs you place above those of the Warehouse?”

Helena’s voice comes so quietly that Myka half-believes she’s imagined it. “Yes.”

“Who?”

“Agent Bering.”

“If you were faced with a decision to save the Warehouse or save Agent Bering, which would you choose?”

Tears escape Helena’s eyes and drip from her chin. Her voice, when she speaks, is unexpectedly clear. “Myka. If I lived a thousand lives, I would save Myka a thousand times.”

Mr. Kosan leans back in his chair and nods to Steve, who rushes back to sit next to Leena. “You see, then, why we take issue with your brand of justice.”

“That is rather ironic,” Helena rasps, wiping her eyes, “as I take great issue with yours.”

“No doubt you are a wiser, more stable woman than you were even at Yellowstone. But you are unpredictable. You are loose with procedure. You are impulsive—”

“—as every good Warehouse agent also is,” Helena interrupts.

“—and you operate on a more extreme scale of emotions than your colleagues,” Mr. Kosan finishes. “Where Agent Lattimer might yell, you explode. Where Agent Donovan sulks, you brood. You are a dormant bomb waiting for a spark, and if lit, I want to make sure we know how to extinguish the fuse.”

“Quite a metaphor, Mr. Kosan,” Helena mocks. “Were you a writer in a past life as well?”

Mr. Kosan doesn’t answer. “Leena,” he says instead, “would you mind educating us about auras?”

Leena looks nervously at everyone at the table. “I’m not really comfortable with this, Mr. Kosan.”

“Just the basics will do,” he presses.

Leena sighs and nods. “People who can sense auras do so in different ways. Some people hear them—certain pitches or melodies. Some people associate them with words. I see them in colors, mostly.”

“And every color means something different?”

“Yes. The strongest color is the most indicative of someone’s personality, while other, less aggressive quirks might show up in flashes and wisps.” She smiles not unlike Mrs. Frederic, and Myka has to wonder what tricks Leena’s been hiding from all of them. “For example, your aura is a solid charcoal with a few red spots. You live in compromise, in a need to maintain the status quo. Sometimes you have opinions and bursts of authority.” She shrugs. “It’s not uncommon for people with superiority complexes.”

Mr. Kosan looks irritated, but he doesn’t rise to the bait. “I see. And what about Ms. Wells’s aura?”

“Helena is a deep, rich violet. She is idealistic and imaginative. Helena has the kind of aura that philosophers dream about.”

“What was her aura like when she was reinstated?”

“Fractured, not as vibrant as it is now. It had empty spots.”

“Absences of color? What do they mean?”

Leena shakes her head. “Not absences of color. More like…spots of un-color. Like a willful repression of feelings.”

“And how did you interpret that?”

“People with violet auras have an easier time finding emotional balance in their lives. But they take a lot of comfort from their fantasies, from their ability to be creative. Traumatic experiences can shock them out of balance and into aggressive depression."

“Ms. Wells was depressed.”

“Yes.”

“Was she dangerous?”

Leena hesitates. “I could never get a good enough read.”

“Did you treat her like she was?”

“I was cautious,” Leena hedges.

“What is her aura like now?”

“Stable. Confident purples mixed in with a lot of yellow.”

“What color is Myka’s aura?”

“Yellow. Myka is a pure yellow—very level-headed and inquisitive. She’s the practical support Helena needs. Myka calms her.”

“How would Helena react if she didn’t have Myka?”

“I’m not a mind-reader, Mr. Kosan. I can see current emotions. I don’t know a lot about the future.” She cranes her neck to look at the rest of the team. “It’s not just about how losing Myka would affect Helena. Losing any part of this team would damage it considerably. This group is almost a perfect rainbow of auras. They all balance each other. I’ve never seen it before.”

“Out of curiosity…” Claudia prompts.

Leena sighs and points in order at Pete, Claudia, Helena, Myka, Artie, and Steve as she rattles off their auras. “Orange, pink, violet, yellow, green with a lot of brown, and turquoise. And I’ve been told I give off a lot of blue.”

“ _Pink_?” Claudia blurts.

“I’ll explain it later,” Leena offers.

“You believe this Warehouse team to be balanced,” Mr. Kosan continues.

“If it includes Helena, yes,” Leena answers. “There’s a funny thing that happens with how we see color. When you combine every color on the visible spectrum, you see white. There is a unifying shimmer to every agents’ aura. If you took one person out of that equation, they’d lose their shine. Without the support they get from each other, these agents grow dark.”

“So it would be detrimental to remove anyone from the Warehouse at this point.”

“Yes.”

Mr. Kosan turns to Myka. “Is that what you felt when you left the Warehouse, Agent Bering?”

Myka takes the time to give Leena a comforting smile, just to let her know that she isn’t mad.

(Leena is intuitive. She can read auras and see colors and she already knows Myka isn’t mad. But it doesn’t hurt to smile anyway.)

Myka turns back to Mr. Kosan and slips on her professional demeanor. “No,” she replies. “I thought I was doing the Warehouse a favor.”

“Obviously you changed your mind.”

“Even I can be wrong sometimes.”

Myka can hear Pete and Claudia giggle; she’s pretty sure even Artie’s chuckle is hidden in a cough.

“What made you leave the Warehouse?”

Myka frowns. She is tired of trying to justify the past to people who only care about it in hindsight. “Helena,” she sighs.

“And what made you return?”

“Helena,” she repeats.

“Agent Bering, no doubt you’ve read the Warehouse manual and are aware of its policies on agent fraternization.”

“It isn’t against the rules.”

(Myka doesn’t tell him that she has double and triple-checked the manual, just in case.)

“You’re right,” he concedes. “It is discouraged, for obvious reasons, but it is not prohibited.”

“Is there a question somewhere?”

“Leena has characterized you as practical and even-tempered. Would you agree with that?”

“Yes.”

“Are you even-tempered when it comes to Ms. Wells?”

“No.”

Heads turn to stare at her. Myka doesn’t have to see Pete to know that he’s gaping like a fish. She’s fairly certain she even saw a flash of surprise on Mrs. Frederic’s face.

(There are still things Myka doesn’t like to discuss. She’ll answer questions about Sam or her father, but she can’t stand to talk about them at length. They’re scars, old wounds that will never fully heal because the pain with which they were inflicted was more than one person should bear. Myka has learned to live with it, and she has learned to seek comfort that is just as enduring.

It is okay to have secrets. Myka has learned this, too. But it’s not okay to spend years made of secrets. It will destroy you so slowly that you won’t think to stop.

Pete and probably Artie are prepared for more secrets. They are prepared for Myka to be defensive. But secrets and love are incompatible, and Helena has taught Myka to choose love first.)

“No?”

“No.”

“Would you leave the Warehouse again if Ms. Wells were gone?”

“How are you defining ‘gone’?”

Mr. Kosan gives her an impatient glare. “Dead, quit”—he flutters his hands absently—“whichever context you choose.”

“‘Dead’ and ‘quit’ are two very different contexts.”

“Would you leave the Warehouse if Helena quit?”

“No.”

“And if she died?”

“No.”

“I fail to see the difference.”

“Would you like me to be a functional, capable agent?”

Mr. Kosan flares his nostrils. “Yes.”

“Then you should work really hard to keep Helena alive.”

Mr. Kosan leans back in his chair and sets his shoulders. “I see this line of questioning might be unproductive. Ms. Wells, I have one final question for you.”

“Careful, Mr. Kosan. It is dangerous to make promises if you don’t intend to keep them, especially if you are making promises to me.”

“I can assure you this is the last question.”

“Alright.”

“You are greatly affected—as we all are—by your ability to love. It holds sway over your decisions, your reactions, how you view the world. The last time you loved someone as deeply as I believe you love Agent Bering, you almost destroyed the world. How are we supposed to unequivocally know that you will not lead us down that path again?”

“There are six people who would stop me before I did anything drastic. I suppose you’ll just have to trust us to do our jobs.” Helena reaches for Myka’s hand under the table. She finds it with long, slender fingers that swipe cool paths of comfort across her palm. “However, if you would like a more significant answer”—she takes a deep breath, rattling it out with the last of her nerves—“Myka can protect herself in ways that Christina could not, and that brings comfort to me more than anything else in this world.”

Jane smiles and nods her approval, as do most of the Regents. Mr. Kosan is less than hostile, which Myka is taking as a veritable win.

“Very well,” he says as he shuffles his papers. “Having found no reason to disbar you from Warehouse activity, I think my fellow Regents would agree that you are welcome to reclaim your old post—under Agent Nielsen’s supervision, of course.”

“And how is this different from how I’ve been spending the last few weeks?”

Mr. Kosan smiles icily. “Now you have my approval.”

Myka tries not to hate anyone. It is a toxic emotion. But she is very, very close today.

“I think we’re done here,” Mr. Kosan says, checking his watch, “unless anyone else would like to say something.”

“Uh, actually I would,” Artie ventures.

Myka would never be so tactless as to scream ‘what the fuck’ during the middle of what is essentially Helena’s trial, but that doesn’t mean she can’t do it with her eyes. She takes pride in the fact that Artie actually flinches.

“No, no, it’s nothing bad!” he clarifies. “I just have things I want to say.”

Mr. Kosan sits back down. “Alright.”

“Oh,” Artie stutters, “I was hoping it could be more private. Like maybe, well—alone, really. I’d like to say something without an audience.”

Myka only leaves because Pete and Claudia are physically pushing her out the door. Once it slams shut she realizes Helena is resisting as well.

“What the hell, Pete!” Myka spits. “I think I have a right to hear what he’s saying. And you!” She turns on Claudia. “Why were you helping him?”

“Mrs. Frederic was giving me her scary look.”

“She’s always scary,” Myka scoffs.

“Her _really_ scary look. And he did it first!” Claudia points an accusatory finger at Pete.

Pete puts his hands up. “Look, don’t bite my head off, okay? But Artie’s got you covered and Helena’s back anyway, right? I mean, do you really want to go back in there?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Artie’s being Artie; you know how he gets. I promise it’s nothing bad.”

“How can you know that, Pete?”

“Vibes.”

“Pete…”

“Big ones.”

“Pete.”

“Really big ones.”

“Pete!”

“Myka!” Pete yells back. “God, will you just shut up, for _once_! Jeez Louise, trust me on this! I know you’re the smart one in this outfit but that doesn’t mean I can’t be right, too. Man, how hard is it to listen to me sometimes?”

Myka flushes and wishes it wasn’t her first instinct to look down. She has a right to be angrier than she’s showing, but making Pete upset always feels like kicking a puppy. “Pete, I—”

He puts his hands on his hips and shakes his head before walking away. “Get a ride from Mrs. Frederic. I’ll meet you back at the Warehouse or whatever.” Myka can hear him muttering to himself right until the moment he slams the door.

Artie asks them where Pete is when he finally finishes talking to the Regents.

Nobody has an answer.

/

Pete avoids Myka and Helena for the rest of the night. No one has any idea why he’s so angry and Artie won’t talk about what he told the Regents. They should be celebrating the fact that Helena is officially back. Instead, everyone is hiding in their rooms and the B&B is heavy with tension, as if traces of Sykes and MacPherson still linger.

Still, Myka is glad for the quiet. It is in silence that she truly appreciates Helena. Helena fills a room with her presence even when she isn’t saying anything. She entrances every time she runs a hand through her hair; every time she smiles at a book; every time her toes twitch after long periods of sitting. Myka finds something new to notice about Helena every time she looks at her.

(Myka doesn’t find it easy to love. She likes, inquires, and hopes with very little discrimination. But love is not a guarantee from everyone, and so she doesn’t automatically offer hers. It’s a side effect of growing up with her father, and she knows it will never go away even though they’ve reconciled their relationship. More than anything, that’s what she and Helena understand about each other. Some wounds heal; others turn into scars.

Myka waited a very long time before she allowed herself to trust Pete. Sam had to work really hard to win her affection. She was even cautious with Claudia for the first few weeks.

Helena needled her way into Myka’s heart with such ease and subtlety that Myka only fully realized it when everything was already broken. What began as a tenuous bridge is now a stalwart tether, the rope that always leads Myka back home.

Helena reminds her of that every day, most times without words. That’s what Myka notices.)

“You wanna talk about it?” she asks as they lie in their bed.

Helena shuffles her head closer to Myka’s shoulder and sighs. It’s a different sigh than the ones from the hearing, and it makes Myka feel safe. “I’ve done enough talking for today, darling.”

Myka slides a hand down Helena’s side, tickling the underside of her arm. “Okay, well, don’t get too comfy. I bet we’ll have some company in a few minutes.”

“Why? Pete is inexplicably upset with both of us.”

Myka turns her head to look at Helena, smiling at her through the strands of hair that are stuck to her cheek. “You haven’t seen Steve and Claudia when they start scheming, have you?”

Helena furrows her brows. Myka simply waits.

Five minutes later—while Myka’s hand is confidently holding onto Helena’s, noting the passage of time by how quickly they seem to warm each other—there is a knock at the door.

“Knock, knock,” Claudia trills (and three years later, she still giggles every time she says that. Myka suspects she does it mostly to fluster Artie.) “Can we come in?”

“Sure.” Myka sits up, pulling Helena with her, and scoots against the headboard. Steve gives a little wave as he and Claudia settle in.

“Sorry the Regents are assholes,” Claudia drawls.

“And Pete,” Steve adds.

“Pete’s not an asshole,” Myka defends. “He’s just…”

“A temporary one?” Claudia finishes.

“Yeah, okay,” Myka acknowledges. “A temporary asshole.”

“Anyway, since everyone is still sulking and Leena is doing whatever Leena does, Steve-O and I thought it might be nice—”

“ _Don’t_ call me Steve-O. I hate that guy.”

“—if you had something nice to cheer you up. Besides Myka, I mean.”

“How thoughtful of you,” Helena grins.

Claudia points her thumb at Steve. “Blame the Dalai Lama over here.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “It was your idea, too. Here.” He tosses something at Helena; Myka leans closer and determines that it’s a copy of the _Tao Te Ching_ with a bow hastily slapped on the cover. “I know this has been around for a while and you’ve probably come across it before, but I find it really useful when I need some peace. I made little notes in the margins.”

“This is your copy?” Helena asks as she flips through the pages.

“Yeah, I can always get another one.”

Helena looks up with a smile. “I did manage to liberate a copy from a shop in China, though the translation wasn’t anywhere near as delicate as this edition. Thank you, Steven.”

“You’re welcome.”

Helena looks over at Claudia, who suddenly seems shy and nervous. She clutches her present to her chest and bites her lip.

“That Christmas after Yellowstone,” she starts, “that was kinda rough. Myka was just barely back and Steve was still a newbie so he went home, and everyone was either mad or missing you or both. I had these made for everyone, and I never really got a chance to give this one to you, so…”

Myka knows what it is even before Helena unfolds it. “Claud…”

Claudia waves her off. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. It was Christmas; you know I get as sappy as Pete.”

Myka watches Helena as she looks at the t-shirt, confusion settling into her eyes. “The driftwood from the Titanic? But this almost killed me.”

“That’s the point,” Claudia explains. “We’ve all got one.”

“Shakespeare’s folio,” Steve offers.

“You remember that lovely spoon,” Claudia adds. “And Artie’s got Mata Hari’s stockings.”

“Man Ray’s camera,” Myka says, settling against Helena. “Pete has a telegraph from Telegraph Island.”

Helena holds the shirt up and examines it. “I’m not part of the Warehouse until an artifact almost kills me?”

“You’re not part of the Warehouse until someone saves you from an artifact,” Claudia corrects. “You probably had some dicey experiences with Warehouse 12, but, you know, welcome to this family.”

Helena smiles. It’s a different kind of smile than Myka usually sees her wear. She has a feeling it might be close to the smile Helena reserved for Christina. “Thank you,” she says with warmth. “Thank you both, truly.”

Claudia scoffs playfully. “No big, H.G.”

“Uh, big-big,” Myka says. Helena hums in confusion and even Steve looks perplexed.

Claudia sums it up for both of them. “Huh?”

Myka rolls her eyes. “Oh, never mind. I was trying to be funny, okay; I was just going with the moment, you know, you would get it if Pete said it—thank you,” she simplifies, composing herself. “Can we please focus on something else?”

“Speaking of the Titanic…” Steve suggests.

“Oooh!” Claudia squeals, clapping her hands. “Can we?” She coughs. “I mean, as a cynical, almost-legal adult who is clearly too smart for sappy movies, I would not find this the least bit enjoyable.”

“What on earth are you two talking about?”

“It’s a movie,” Myka says, bumping Helena’s foot as she answers her question. She turns to address Claudia. “I don’t think Pete would relinquish his TV for chick flicks even if he weren’t mad at us.”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” Claudia retorts dramatically, clutching a hand to her chest. “The Warehouse has, like, a million projectors; do you really think I haven’t repurposed one by now?”

Myka scrunches her brows suspiciously. “What kind of projector? That transmogrifying one?”

“Yeah, that one!” Claudia rolls her eyes so spectacularly that Myka almost snorts. “ _No_ , not that one; come on. Anyway, mine’s way cooler than that.”

“Just as long as we won’t suddenly get bowled over by a freezing, sinking ship.”

“Scout’s honor,” Claudia promises. “Now let’s go before Artie finds us and makes us do the weird nighttime Warehouse chores.”

“Is this a documentary?” Helena asks as they walk to Claudia’s room.

“Pfft, no way,” Steve huffs. “Only the best love story ever.”

“With some major eye candy,” Claudia adds. “Young Leo—yum.”

“I dunno, I always thought Kate was the better actor of the two,” Myka counters.

Claudia flops down on her bed with a big bounce. “Who cares about the acting when Leonardo DiCaprio looks like _that_?”

“It’s true,” Steve agrees, nodding his head.

“Leonardo Di- _who_?” Helena blurts.

Even Myka has to groan at that one.


	8. The Way You Look Tonight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tiny continuity errors with the third chapter of "Love Itself", but they're still less glaring than Helena's backstory, amirite? (eyyyooooo)

**with each word your tenderness grows,**   
**tearing my fear apart.**   
**and that laugh that wrinkles your nose,**   
**it touches my foolish heart.**

**.**

Jane and Irene drop by three days later and send everyone into a tizzy. Pete is so excited to see his mother that he forgets to be cold and detached. Helena watches as Myka softens and smiles, happy to see her best friend finally acting like it again. Helena has a sneaking suspicion that it won’t last.

Arthur is the only one unfazed by their guests. He retreats into his office and rarely visited aisles of the Warehouse, only stopping to say a quick hello.

“He’s just antsy because we haven’t had a ping in a few days,” Myka explains.

Helena, Jane, and Irene watch him walk away, scratching his head and compulsively opening and closing his pocket watch.

“I’m sure that’s all it is,” Irene says. “How has the Warehouse been after Sykes?”

Myka turns back toward Artie, as though she expects him to interrupt with a gruff objection, but he has already disappeared from view.

“Shouldn’t you be asking Artie that?” Myka frowns.

“I am asking you, Myka. Artie is not the only agent with a valuable opinion.”

Helena notices the pride that Myka tries to conceal in her smile. “Okay, well,” Myka stutters, recovering, “it’s been kind of tense, but we’re putting everything back together.”

“Then everyone is assimilating smoothly?”

Myka frowns. “Assimilating to what? Is Steve a sleeper agent now or something?”

“Assimilating to each other,” Irene answers.

Myka glances nervously between Irene, Jane, and Helena. “Mrs. Frederic, is there something going on that I should know about?”

“The Warehouse was woefully unprepared for Walter Sykes. We are simply trying to prevent a situation like that from occurring again,” Mrs. Frederic replies.

There are four people in the room and all of them know that Irene did not answer Myka’s question. Myka looks to Helena, expecting her to object. Helena instead stays silent and looks at the floor.

“That isn’t really what I—”

“Helena,” Mrs. Frederic interrupts, “I wonder if you could spare a moment to talk.”

Helena looks apologetically at Myka. “Of course,” she answers.

“Wonderful.” Irene and Jane walk away. Helena takes a few moments for Myka before following them.

“Helena—”

“Later, darling,” Helena rushes. “I promise, we will chat later.”

Myka is unmoved by her assurances. “This looks like more than just a little chat, Helena.”

Helena sighs and hesitates. Myka deserves more than a little chat but Helena is not sure exactly how much she is allowed to divulge.

“Yes,” she agrees. She takes Myka’s hand and squeezes it. “Later,” she repeats.

Irene be damned; Myka will get all of her truth when Helena gets back.

“She does not appreciate being lied to,” Helena says when she catches up.

“I wasn’t aware we had fed her any lies.”

Helena turns Irene’s patented glare back on her. “Irene…”

“Have you given any more thought to my offer?”

“Will it preclude me from going into the field, presuming Arthur declares me fit?”

“No. But I will need you to drop all Warehouse activities when I come calling.”

Helena appraises Irene for a moment. The woman is made of secrets and mystery, but there is no deceit in her eyes. Helena disapproves of how she’s approached this situation, but then again Helena has always disapproved of bureaucracy. Methods should not be criticized when intentions are pure, she supposes.

“Alright,” she says. “I accept.”

“I appreciate this more than you know, Helena. I believe you have the power to change this Warehouse more than any other agent we’ve employed.”

Helena edges her way between Irene and Jane—if she is to be Irene’s partner, she will not follow at her heel like a lapdog. “I thought you were distancing yourself from the Regents,” she says, clasping her hands behind her back.

“Jane does not share the same motives as Mr. Kosan and the other Regents.”

“That would have been nice to know at my inquisition.”

“I _am_ sorry, Helena,” Jane murmurs. “The Regents are paranoid these days, and worse for it. I tried to intervene as much as I could, but they’re a stubborn group when they’re afraid.”

“Eventually we will have to let the Regents in on our plan, and it will be easier if one of them is already convinced,” Irene explains.

“And what is our plan?”

Irene smirks a little. “In time. There are more pressing matters. Leena has been reporting that Artie is even more surly than usual.”

“Leena? For a woman so concerned with keeping secrets, you seem to take a lot of confidantes, Irene.”

“Leena has known Artie for quite a while, Helena. She is more tuned to his changes of attitude than you are.”

Helena sighs. “Yes, alright. There is something wrong with Arthur; I’m sure of it. Though, after our exhausting meeting with the Regents, everyone is in a bad mood. Pete hasn’t spoken to either Myka or me for more than a few minutes at a time since then.”

“Pete?” Jane interrupts. “What’s wrong with Pete?”

“I don’t know,” Irene answers.

Jane shakes her head, dissatisfied with her response. “But you suspect something.”

“I do. Helena?”

Irene looks at Helena, as if waiting for her to explain everything. Helena feels a need to roll her eyes—sometimes Irene is afflicted with the same sense of entitlement as Arthur—but she squashes it. There are things she has been wondering for the past few weeks, and given her enormous intellect, her theories are usually more than just guesswork.

“I think it has something to do with Walter Sykes,” she says. “More than his intent to destroy the Warehouse, I mean. There has been something bothering me about the way we defeated him.”

“Which is?” Irene prompts.

“There is no way Arthur should have known about the bomb.”

“What does that have to do with Pete?”

Helena turns toward Jane. “Jane, have you ever seen your son act?”

Jane wrinkles her nose. “Pete can’t act to save his life.”

“Precisely. He is wonderful at undercover on missions, but he is awful at fooling his friends. When Arthur mentioned the bomb, Pete immediately jumped in to help him think of ways to neutralize it. I believe Myka overlooked this oddity only because she was so concerned for the Warehouse.”

“But you noticed it?”

“I confess, I am still working my way up to trusting Arthur. I was skeptical and scared. Apparently that combination creates an even more scrupulous eye for detail.”

“Have you come to any conclusions?” Irene inquires.

“I believe there is only one answer, yes.”

“Enlighten us.”

“Time travel.”

“Physical time travel is impossible,” Jane protests. “Every Warehouse agent is taught that when they’re hired.”

“Everything is impossible until it happens,” Helena quips. She addresses Irene again. “They cannot have used my machine; we left it in a state of considerable disrepair after the last time.”

“Yes, I remember the report. Have you noticed Artie handling anything strange?”

Helena frowns. “Well, he hasn’t really let anyone spend time with him. He does seem to be favoring his watch, though.”

“How can he not favor something that’s always on his wrist?” Jane asks.

“No, no—not a wristwatch,” Helena clarifies. “A rather ornate pocket watch. It looks like it predates even me.”

Irene stops at the end of an aisle. “A pocket watch? Are you certain?”

“Yes. Why, does he collect them?”

“Artie hates pocket watches. He always stumbles over opening them.”

“Well, I’ve definitely seen this watch at least twice. Once today and once the day before the meeting with the Regents.”

“He showed it to you?”

Helena shakes her head. “No, he tried to hide it from me. He stowed it in his pocket just before I—”

“Just before you what?”

Helena crosses her arms and answers, uncharacteristically tripping over her words. “Just before I apologized for shooting him and attempting to use the Trident.” She rolls her eyes at the smug twinkle in Irene’s eye. “As I said, I am actively trying to trust him. Is there a reason we’ve stopped walking?”

“What astute powers of observation,” Irene jests. “Yes, we have stopped for a reason.” She reaches into a shelf and pulls out a sizable chunk of rubberized foam. “This is a piece of radiation absorbent material from Leo Beranek’s first anechoic chamber, which of course is a pioneer technology in—”

“Soundproofing, essentially,” Helena finishes. “But—”

Irene holds up a finger, silencing her. “Touch it, please.” Helena and Jane reach out hesitantly, finally touching it only under Irene’s pleading gaze.

Helena feels as if she has been dropped beneath the ocean, as if every sound not made by Irene or Jane is bouncing off an invisible barrier. Sound has become little more than muffled vibrations.

“I bet there’s one heckuva side effect with this one,” Jane drawls.

“You may experience some ringing in your ears for a little while.”

“How long is a little while?” Helena frowns.

“Increasingly longer the more we stand here and question this artifact,” Irene snaps. “Now, Artie has cameras all over the Warehouse and they pick up sound, which is why I’ve resorted to using this. I agree with you, Helena; something is terribly wrong. I believe it has something to do with that watch, and I would like you to investigate further. Call it your first mission for me.”

“ _With_ you,” Helena corrects. “I am not your lackey.”

Irene smiles. “No, I suppose not.”

“Irene, I hate to disappoint you so early in our partnership, but I’m sure I will find it very difficult to examine this watch, as Arthur rarely detaches himself from it.”

“You are skilled in the art of distraction and you have a wealth of objects to aid you. I’m confident you’ll figure it out.”

Helena rolls her eyes. “Yes, well I also don’t have a Caretaker to regale me with the endless list of artifacts from which to choose.”

“You have a database,” Irene smiles, “and the woman who built it. I have confidence.” She turns her attention to Jane. “You’ll have no trouble accessing the files on Sykes?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Jane confirms. “The other Regents are eager to put this whole thing behind them. What do they care if I stay up all night reading about it?”

“Wonderful.”

“Irene,” Helena interrupts, “before we wrap up this conversation, I just wanted to let you know—I cannot deceive Myka anymore. The next time I see her, I intend to inform her of my new duties.”

Irene waits a moment. It is a long moment. “That’s fine,” she eventually says. “Though I would ask that you not divulge the details of this watch just yet.”

“Selective truth is not exactly on my agenda—”

“You can be worried about Artie; Myka should be worried about Pete. Let her focus on him.”

Helena dips her head. “Alright.”

“Alright,” Irene echoes. “You can let go now.”

Helena removes her finger from the foam and the world rushes back in a cacophony of sound; her eardrums have surely exploded or are in the process of being recreated, because there is so much happening in the world and it is all happening in her ears. By the time Helena gets her bearings back, Irene is gone.

“One day she’s gonna teach me how to do that,” Jane huffs.

“Yes, because we’d all love for the Regents to have the ability to spy on us at their discretion.”

Jane looks at Helena thoughtfully. “Do you like me, Helena?”

“I distrust your entire organization. I have very few thoughts on you personally.”

Jane rolls up her sleeves and digs her hands in the pockets of her jeans. “Let me walk you back to the office.”

“Alright.”

Helena is no fool; she recognizes this walk for what it is. But Helena is also tired of playing games. If Jane is willing to be honest with her, Helena is willing to listen.

“Along with Myka and Steve, you and I are in the unusual position of having willingly left and returned to the Warehouse. I’ve been a Regent for a while, but not continuously.”

“I suppose you had a few changes of heart?”

Jane nods. “In a way. As Pete grew up, I distanced myself from the Warehouse. I didn’t want my work to separate me from my family. And then my husband died and I didn’t need the Warehouse to isolate me—I did a pretty damn good job of it myself.”

“What made you return?”

“Irene asked me to.”

“Irene has more sway over you than the rest of the Regents?”

Jane chuckles. “Irene has been a thorn in the Regents’ side for as long as I’ve been with the Warehouse. She predates all of us now. The Regents may have final governing power, but you want something done, you ask Irene Frederic.”

“I suppose that explains how Pete caught the attention of the Warehouse,” Helena smirks.

“Irene has known him since he was a boy, but he had no idea who she was until she approached him. The Regents vote on every potential agent, and Pete was voted in with a final tally of 16-1.” Jane leans in and lowers her voice. “Guess who the lone dissenter was. Pete became a Warehouse agent all on his own. Certainly you’re not suggesting that my son isn’t worthy of being an agent.”

Helena knows how deep a mother’s pride is entrenched. Thinking of it makes her ache, but today it makes her smile. “No, of course not. Pete is…” She pauses, trying to find the right way to describe Pete Lattimer. He is a simple man until she has to explain him, and then she stumbles over her words. “I can see why Myka values him so much. There are very few genuinely good men left in this world; I believe Pete is the purest of them. If I had to choose a confidant, I would choose him.”

“Other than Myka, you mean.”

“Well, that goes without saying.”

They are near the office now; Helena can hear Myka conversing with Arthur. Her voice carries, but Helena is always subconsciously listening for it anyway. Jane slows to a stroll before stopping at the foot of the stairs.

“You might still be reserving judgment about my intentions, Helena, but I think we’re gonna be working together a lot in the future, and I just wanted you to know that I trust you.”

“Why?”

“I know what the Warehouse does to a person. It’s why I didn’t want Pete to be an agent. Never mind the physical danger—he got enough of that at the Secret Service. It’s what it does to a person’s mind that worries me. I think you know that better than any of us.” Helena feels her cheeks flush but she doesn’t look away. “I read your file when you were reinstated the first time; I know the kind of person you were before your daughter’s death. I think you’re working your way back there now. But the Warehouse did you wrong and you’re still recovering from it, and I want you to know that I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that never happens to any future agent. I’m on your side, Helena.”

“People keep saying that,” Helena scoffs.

“People keep meaning it.”

In spite of everything, Helena likes Jane. She is drawn to her cowboy attitude, the quick thinking and willingness to act that she clearly passed on to her son. And, if she shares more than one trait with Pete, Helena anticipates being drawn to her sincerity. Helena has spent more than a century scorning the Regents and their motives. But that was a century without Myka, and Myka has taught her that people can surprise you. Myka has taught her that a little blind faith is not necessarily a bad thing.

So Helena nods and extends her hand for Jane to shake, smiling when she does. “I look forward to working with you.”

Jane smiles back. “The feeling’s mutual.” She lets go of Helena’s hand and jogs up the stairs. “Now, why don’t we go save Myka from your cranky boss?”

/

Helena barely has any time to talk with Myka until it’s time to leave. Arthur has them running around, cataloguing artifacts and making sure the Warehouse has what it says it has, and they never seem to cross paths. Helena runs into Pete twice—the first time, he smiles and waves, much like he always does. Helena, always one for courtesy where it’s due, smiles and waves back.

The second time he won’t look at her. That’s the time that Helena will pass on to Myka.

But six thirty eventually comes and Claudia herds them all out of the Warehouse while Arthur is in his living quarters. They pile into their respective cars and follow each other home, like a line of mechanical ants returning to the colony.

Pete disappears into his room when they get back and Claudia heads for the kitchen. (Helena knows she will pick up a Mountain Dew and a bowl of pretzel sticks. She takes every precaution to hide her trail online, but Claudia is a creature of habit in real life. Helena appreciates the incongruity.)

Helena heads to their bedroom, expecting that Myka will want to talk immediately. But two minutes pass without any sign of her. At five, Helena takes out a book and attempts to read. She does not absorb many of the words.

The bedroom door clicks quietly half an hour later, just as Helena has relaxed enough to begin paying attention to her story. Myka leans against the wall and sighs, smiling as Helena looks up.

“Hey,” she murmurs.

“Hello,” Helena responds with a grin.

“Is it just me, or has today felt really long?”

Helena folds back the covers and climbs off the bed, standing in front of Myka and smoothing back her hair.

She tucks a buoyant curl behind Myka’s ear. “I love you.”

Myka blushes and smiles. “You’re stalling.”

Helena chuckles and rests her hands on Myka’s cheeks, rubbing her thumbs in soothing swirls underneath her eyes. “No, darling; listen to me. My affection for you is never a distraction. It is constant and persistent, some times more than others. Some times like tonight, when you walk into this room and immediately smile upon noticing me, even though you have every right to be extraordinarily frustrated; those are the times when I have no other adequate response than to tell you, very immediately, how much I adore you.”

Helena keeps talking until she’s sure Myka will kiss her.

Myka smiles into her lips when they break apart. “You’re stalling,” she repeats.

Helena smiles back. “I am a little bit.”

“Why are Mrs. Frederic and Jane so interested in you?”

Helena guides Myka back to the bed and waits until they are both settled to talk. “When I first started at Warehouse 12,” she begins, “I could not wait to start hunting artifacts. I was sure it would be the most thrilling work of my life. I had just had Christina, you see, and I wanted to spoil her very badly. I wanted to bring her trinkets from my travels; sneak harmless artifacts out of the Warehouse for her to play with—a spinning top that created sparkles, or a marker that let her draw wherever she wanted without fear of leaving a permanent stain. Wonder is best seen through a child’s eye; I knew that Christina would make my job and my life richer.”

Myka reaches for Helena’s hand, smoothing the skin at her knuckles. “And now?”

Helena inhales a deep breath, letting her shoulders flop dramatically. They are so loose with their posture, these modern citizens. It is more liberating than she would have imagined.

“Now…now, how can I dazzle anyone with stories from the Warehouse when all of my family is employed by it?” She laughs at Myka’s giggle. “That is one answer,” Helena continues. “The other one is far more serious and far less enjoyable. The truth of the matter, Myka, is that I am afraid. I am afraid to put myself in perilous situations. I have been granted a second chance and I do not intend to squander it, not when I’ve finally found a world in which I truly belong. And I suppose the most foolish of my fears”—she wipes away a tear or two, embarrassed by the fact that she’s cried twice in four days—“is that I will leave you the way Christina left me.”

“Helena…”

“You deserve better than another dead lover,” Helena sniffs.

“Considering how much we’ve had to fight to get here—sometimes against each other—I’ll take what I can get.” Myka squeezes her hand and pulls Helena closer to her. Helena could stand being even closer than that. “What does this have to do with Mrs. Frederic?”

“Irene knows I am afraid,” Helena answers. “She won’t ever say anything, but she knows. That woman’s sense of intuition is either preternatural or terrifying; I haven’t yet decided which.”

“How about both?” Myka laughs.

“Yes, both is good. She is also far more accommodating than one might think.” Helena shifts to rest her cheek against Myka’s shoulder. “The Warehouse is changing, Myka, and you and I must usher it in. I, perhaps, a little more aggressively than you.”

“Are you saying that Mrs. Frederic is—what, is she recruiting you for something?”

“More or less,” Helena nods. “I believe she used the phrase ‘backup’.”

“Well, that’s impressive. I’m officially jealous of how close you are with Mrs. Frederic.”

Helena barks a laugh. “That is only because you do not know her as I do.”

“You don’t like her?” Myka frowns.

“Of course I do,” Helena replies, shaking her head. “But she can be rather intrusive. With grace and tact, to be sure, but intrusive all the same. One day I’ll tell you all about our conversations, and then you can revise your jealousy.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“She asked me not to. I believe she was giving me time to fully think it over and accept.”

“And you have?”

“I have,” Helena nods, “just tonight.”

“Why, what does she want you to do?”

“I don’t know her long-term goals, but for now Irene has taken it upon herself to deal with the aftermath of Walter Sykes.”

“Well, I think we’re all recovering pretty well from that. I mean, not very quickly, but it’s happening.” Helena shakes her head again. “It isn’t happening,” Myka amends. “What’s on your mind?”

“I’m worried about Pete.”

Helena sighs and sits up, telling Myka what she can about Pete and Arthur’s behavior. She divulges enough to satisfy both Myka and Irene, and a part of her wishes Irene were there to appreciate her diplomacy. The longer Helena speaks, the more anxious Myka’s eyes become, and so it is in an effort to calm her that they spend the night drafting plans and color-coded charts to record Pete and Arthur’s behavior. They devise strategies for playing shadow without being noticed. Helena does not mention the watch; she’ll ask Claudia for information in the morning.

When Myka is too tired to hold a pen and Helena is too tired to think, they sleep. It is a forgotten deed, the act of sleeping. It has become so mundane, so domestic and trivial, and Helena has never appreciated it more. Myka curls around Helena and dims the lights until they are cloaked in each other’s protective warmth.

Helena values few things more than a good woman in a soft bed, and Myka is more than just a good woman.


	9. I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby

**you have a lifetime before you;**  
 **i'll adore you, come what may.**  
 **please don't be blue for the present**  
 **when it's so pleasant to hear you say,  
** **"i can't give you anything but love, baby."**

**.**

_“Mykes. Hey, Mykes. Myka. Mykaaaa.”_

_“Darling, the sun has yet to rise and your partner is in our room. Please get rid of him.”_

_“Go away, Pete.”_

_“Gordo left a big turd in the kitchen.”_

_“His name is Byron.”_

_“Oh, well, excuuuse me, Ms. Fancypants. I figure Gordo’s pretty appropriate since he’s named after that fat poet with the clubfoot.”_

_“Can we just go back to sleep and worry about this in the morning?”_

_“It is morning. I was making breakfast and almost stepped in a big pile of doggy mess.”_

_“Pete, what time is it?”_

_“Almost five.”_

_“Why the hell are you making breakfast?”_

_“I get up when my stomach does, Mykes. You know that. Can you please clean up after your tiny pooping animal?”_

_“Fine, fine. Helena, it’s your turn. Come on, I know you’re not asleep. Go grab Byron and a garbage bag.”_

_“I can’t hear you, love; I’m in the middle of a wonderful dream.”_

_“Mykes—”_

_“Ugh, alright. But there better be coffee.”_

Myka still has dreams about Helena. She doesn’t need to now, but she does. It’s something she’s done with every serious relationship she’s had. Never any fantasies of big weddings or enough children to start a baseball team; Tracy has always wanted those things, not Myka. She dreams of little moments. With Sam, it was finally being open at work; taking him out to dance because he hated it and she always wanted to.

Myka’s dreams of Helena are more domestic. She has visions of ugly pug dogs that Helena finds too charming to resist; doing the _New York Times_ crossword on Sunday mornings; finally teaching her how to use the dishwasher. They’re things that Myka might take for granted with anyone else, but Helena is not anyone else. Myka knows her inside and out, but she’s very fuzzy on the personal details of her life pre-bronzing. She doesn’t know Helena’s favorite color or the foods that always tempt her too much; she doesn’t know what kind of books she likes to read (though she knows volumes about what she likes to write) or her favorite music. These are the things Myka dreams about.

Myka blurrily reaches for her phone the second she feels Helena stir.

“Do you like dogs?” she mumbles, still halfway asleep.

“What?”

Myka smiles into her pillow. Helena is not very eloquent in the mornings. “Do you like dogs?” she repeats.

“They’re better than cats,” Helena replies, “though I was always a bit fearful when large ones would come bounding up to me.”

“Okay, no big dogs.” Myka unlocks her phone and shields her eyes from the brightness of the screen. She does a quick image search for pugs and shoves Helena until she rolls over and looks. “Here, what about this one?”

Helena cracks open an eye and laughs, raspy and full of a good night’s sleep. “Oh, look at that ghastly overbite. It’s almost precious. What breed is that?”

“A pug.”

“A pug,” Helena repeats, giggling. “Wonderful.” She knocks the phone out of Myka’s hand and pulls her closer. “Now why on earth are you thinking about pugs so early in the morning?”

Myka shrugs and burrows into Helena’s neck. “Just a dream I had.”

“About small dogs with squashed faces?”

“About you,” Myka smiles, “and the possibility of small dogs with squashed faces.”

“Well, we already have a ferret. They’d have to get along.”

“ _We_ have a ferret?” Myka teases. “I’ve had Pete longer than I’ve had you.”

“Yes, well, given his proclivity to urinate in my shoes, I’d like to think I have an equal share in his ownership.”

Myka chuckles, feeling herself being pulled back to sleep by Helena’s warmth, as she always (inevitably) is. “Okay, you can have half of Pete. The cranky half.”

“How very generous of you, darling.”

/

Helena is gone the next time Myka wakes up. Either she’s gotten a head start on work or Mrs. Frederic has stolen her away. If it’s the second one, Myka is going to make a big fuss. She’d at least want to say goodbye.

There is no coffee on her nightstand like there usually is when Helena is the first to rise, but there is a note. It’s charming and to the point, the way Helena always is in writing. In actual conversation, Helena can be a bit verbose. Not that Myka minds—Helena always uses all the best words.

_Darling Myka—_

_I’ve only gone to get a head start at the Warehouse; don’t fret. I have a favor to ask of you when you get in—could you meet me in Pythagoras 47? I’ll be the charming brunette with a hot cup of tea._

_All my love,_

_Helena_

Myka smiles and folds the note back up, putting it in a hidden panel in her desk where she keeps all of Helena’s letters. She knows Helena has found it, but that doesn’t stop her from keeping up the charade. It’s nice to have a fun secret, even if it is a fake one.

She takes her time getting dressed. Technically, they’re supposed to be at the Warehouse as soon as physically possible (Myka has interpreted that to mean eight thirty in Artie-speak), but Artie’s been so absentminded lately that Myka’s fallen out of practice. She ambles around her room, relishing the extra time before they fix Artie and he starts noticing again. And she also wants to test if Helena will have a hot cup of tea no matter what time she gets there. Nothing is more amusing than an unexpected challenge.

Pete is yawning into his pancakes when Myka finally makes her way downstairs. He isn’t even dressed, and they’re already late for work.

“Rough night, partner?” she asks as she pours some coffee into a travel mug.

Pete scratches the back of his head and yawns again. “Haven’t been sleeping well lately,” he croaks. “Pancakes make better.” He bunches his face into a caveman brow and grunts, spearing some breakfast and shoving it sloppily in his mouth.

Myka has to laugh. Underneath all the recent grump, Pete has a goofy side that will never go away. “You’re twelve,” she teases. She doesn’t mean it the way she used to. “If you get dressed quickly, I won’t make you take the leftover car.”

Artie’s clunker of an El Camino doesn’t get driven much anymore, except for when Claudia takes Helena out to the desert to do donuts. Everyone pretty much has their own car or they’re really good at sharing, so the last person to leave the inn inevitably gets stuck with it. It smells like stale sun and Artie’s dated cologne. They’ve given that thing a few dozen car washes—nothing gets rid of that smell.

Pete eats three more bites of pancakes—quickly, messily, with most of it ending up on the floor—and runs upstairs.

Myka smiles into her coffee.

/

“Hey, Mykes?”

Myka turns off the radio and slows down. Pete always saves his serious conversations for the car.

“Yeah?”

“I think I know why I’ve been sleeping so bad.”

“Bad _ly_.”

“Ah, come on. That’s H.G.’s schtick.”

“Oh, right. Because she’s the writer.”

“Hey, I’m trying to say something here.”

Myka checks a smile and shuts up. “Okay, sorry.”

“Well, I was thinking,” Pete says as he drums his fingers on his knees, “I was thinking that everyone else is pretty happy right now—”

“You’re not?” Myka interrupts softly.

Pete continues undeterred. “—you know, Claudia and Steve have their little buddy-buddy thing, and you’ve got H.G., and hell, even Artie’s got Vanessa and their adorable grandparents deal. I was thinking maybe, maybe it’s time for me to try to find someone again. I’m a family guy, Mykes.”

Myka parks the car in front of the Warehouse, leaning back in her seat. “Okay, well, you’ve already got a family.” She waits for Pete to smile. He always smiles when she gets mushy. “But, yeah, you wanna add one more? Go for it. What are you getting so bent out of shape for, anyway? You’re always chasing after girls.” She snorts. “Sometimes I have to physically pull you away.”

“Yeah,” he laughs. “I dunno, I just…”

Myka unbuckles her seatbelt and twists to face him. “Are you thinking about looking for Kelly again? I know Claud would help.”

The smile falls from Pete’s face as he clenches his fists in his lap. “Don’t talk to me about Kelly, Mykes.”

“What? Pete, that was the only other place that conversation could go; I mean you practically led me there.”

“Because you’re gonna go home and talk about Kelly with H.G. and then she’s gonna feel bad and try and apologize—”

“Pete, I didn’t mean anything—”

“—and maybe I like her again but I don’t know if I can forgive her for that—”

“Pete.”

“—I mean, what if I tried to take you away from her, huh? She’d never get over it.”

“Pete!"

“What!” he screams. Myka actually flinches because Pete never screams, at least not at her.

“I’m not gonna sit here and let you yell at me again, Pete,” she murmurs. “I don’t deserve it.”

“Sorry,” he huffs.

“Look, let me do some research; you’re obviously not yourself. Something—”

“We should be working,” he snaps, and then he slams the door. Myka watches him almost sprint toward the umbilicus, kicking dirt the whole way.

“—isn’t right,” she finishes to an empty car.

/

“You need to apologize to Pete,” Myka says when she finds Helena ten minutes later. Helena simply hands her a cup of tea. Myka can see the steam rising from the top. “How do you do that?”

“Claudia has her frosty snowglobe, and I have my secrets,” Helena answers cryptically. She smiles and quirks an eyebrow. “I may not know the ins and outs of this Warehouse like you do, but I did have a few more years to familiarize myself with the artifacts.”

“Is that why we’re here?”

Helena widens her smile. “Actually, no; this artifact is younger than I am. I only know of it because of Irene.” She reaches into a shelf behind her and pulls out a piece of sturdy foam. “Touch this, please.”

Myka frowns suspiciously. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Yes,” Helena answers, “and the ringing lasts no more than twenty four hours. I can hear wonderfully right now, darling, so please touch it.”

Myka rolls her eyes and reaches out a hand. It feels like sound gets sucked out of her ears. She scrunches her eyebrows and gapes her mouth like a fish, opening and closing it to try and equalize the pressure.

“Jeez.”

Helena chuckles lightly. “It does take some getting used to, doesn’t it?”

Myka doesn’t like sticking things in her ears, but she has a pretty desperate urge to wiggle her finger around until something pops. “Why does everything important have to be a secret?”

“There are many answers to that question, darling. Which would you like?”

Myka fixes Helena with a glare. “Why do we have to be secretive today?” she amends.

“There is something of Artie’s that I need to procure for Irene, but I will not be able to unless he is distracted.”

“And you want me to distract him.”

“Yes.”

“Can I at least know what it is you need?”

Helena hesitates. “Not just yet, no.”

Myka expels a line of air from her nose. “Okay, so while I go distract Artie, you’re essentially going to steal from him.”

“Only in the loosest sense of the word.” Helena digs in her pocket and pulls out her phone. “I know he would notice its absence if I took it completely, so I intend to simply take enough pictures to satisfy Irene.”

“Oh. Well, that’s…better.”

“Indeed.” Helena lets go of the foam and Myka follows suit.

“You know, you could have just asked me in the car on the way to the Warehouse. You know I love driving to work with you.”

“You need your sleep.”

“I’m pretty well-rested,” Myka smiles.

“Darling, we work at the Warehouse. Every one of us needs sleep. And besides,” Helena smirks, “I am not one to deny myself simple pleasures, and watching you rest is the purest of those.”

“It’s dangerous how charming you are, you know.”

“I do know.”

They’re standing too close to each other, because they always are; fingers tangling together like they always do. It surprises Myka sometimes—not the depth of her need for Helena, but the immediacy of it. She doesn’t rely on being physically close to her, but if they’re in a room together it will happen. Armchairs in the library will become shared couches; seats at the dinner table will turn into clasped hands and knees that knock playfully into each other. Myka has never shied away from physical affection, but receiving it from Helena soothes her more than she was expecting.

Helena kisses her then, slow and deep and safe, hands planted on her hips like they were made to fit there. (They weren’t, but they belong there all the same.) Myka loops her arms around Helena’s neck and backs up until she’s leaning very lightly against a shelf. Helena is warm and soft and there is a ringing in her ears that has nothing to do with the artifact she just touched.

“You don’t want Artie to listen in on our conversation, but he can watch us make out?” Myka breathes when they break apart.

“I am quite certain he is not in his office”—(Helena’s voice is always deeper after kissing and Myka takes that as the best compliment)—“and I will never promise to control myself around you.”

Myka leans in for another kiss, light without being chaste, sensual without overdoing it. She knows it works when Helena’s lips follow hers as she pulls away. “That sounds like a challenge,” she murmurs.

“Oh, I do hope it is.”

/

Artie slips into a faraway aisle so quietly that Myka almost misses him. She would have missed him entirely, actually, if Helena had not nudged her shoulder with an impatient and indignant hand. Myka would have snapped back at her if Helena hadn’t already been rifling around in his desk. No matter her personal feelings, when Myka is tasked with a chore she will always do it.

So she follows Artie through a winding path of aisles, finally speaking up when he stops.

“Artie,” she calls as she jogs the last few feet toward him.

He snaps his head up, his curls bouncing. “What? What is it? Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing’s wrong,” she answers, shaking her head. “I, um, I just—well, I don’t know what exactly you said, but—I wanted to thank you,” Myka says after a breath. “I don’t know what you said to the Regents but it must have been good because Helena’s still here.” She smiles shakily. This conversation may be at Helena’s behest, but that doesn’t mean Myka isn’t going to use it to her full advantage.

Artie smiles a little, too. “You’re welcome.”

“Can I ask you what you told them?”

The smile fades from his face. “No.”

“I won’t tell Helena that you like her, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Myka’s attempt at humor doesn’t soften him at all. “I can’t tell you,” he says. “It would—” He shakes his head again. “I can’t tell you.”

“Ever?”

“Now,” Artie says, busying himself with an artifact catalog screen.

Myka puts her hands on her hips and stares up at him. “Okay, well, do you like Helena?”

Artie stills, his hands resting against the shelf, and peers at her through his arms. “What?”

“I mean, maybe it’s an out-of-the-blue question, but she’s not going anywhere and you stuck up for her with the Regents—I assume—so I just wanted to know if you like her.”

Artie frowns and pushes his glasses up. “She’s useful.”

“That’s not really what I asked.”

“Myka—”

“No, look, I don’t push you on secrets anymore, okay? I accept that there are things you know that Pete and everyone else and I don’t or can’t know. But I’m pushing you on this because Helena’s worth it. Because I don’t need your approval to be happy but I do need it to do a good job.”

“Fine,” he growls, “fine. Yes, I like her. She’s a valuable resource and despite her murky past and _egregious_ character flaws, she has proven that she’s capable of growth, which I can’t exactly fault her for. And even though it might not be my place to comment—”

Myka knows where he’s going and suddenly she doesn’t really care what he thinks. “Artie, you don’t have to—”

“—to comment on your love life,” he continues, “I think it bears saying that even if your taste in women is somewhat suspect, it matters to me that all my agents are happy. In a professional way, I mean.”

Myka smiles. “Of course. Artie—”

“That’s all I’m saying.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Go away.”

“Okay.”

Myka turns on her heel and leaves him to talk to his artifacts. She stops and looks back at him when she reaches the end of the next aisle.

He’s still talking and Myka can’t stop her nerves from rumbling.

/

Helena gives Myka a wink the next time they’re both in the office; Myka assumes that means she was successful in her mission. Sometimes she can’t tell—Helena has a lot of winks and at least half of them are for Myka’s eyes only.

“Has anyone seen Artie?” Claudia says from her desk. She kicks her feet up and lobs a tennis ball back to Steve, who’s sprawled out on the couch.

Myka laughs and watches them play catch for a few moments before answering. “He was down somewhere near the kitchen aisle last time I saw him.”

Claudia cocks her head and widens her eyes. “Oh no, was he playing with that pie pan again? I swear, I thought it would be the worst thing in the world if Pete found that aisle, but…”

Myka stifles a guffaw. “No, he was just cataloguing something, Claud. Why do you need him?”

Claudia shrugs and throws the ball back to Steve, never out of sync with him even when they’re not looking at each other. “I dunno, I get the feeling sometimes—is it me or has Artie been kind of weird lately?”

Steve frowns and bobbles the tennis ball back and forth before throwing it to Claudia. “He’s always kind of cranky.”

Myka opens her mouth to say something (because she will always try to fix everything), but Helena gives the slightest shake of her head, and so Myka changes directions.

“It’s probably Artie just being Artie,” she adds. “Nothing to worry about.”

(Myka makes sure to avoid eye contact with Steve.)

She’s saved any awkward explanation by the sound of the umbilicus hissing. Pete comes running in, clutching a bag of donuts and a thermos. The scarf Myka got him for Christmas two years ago is open around his neck and his ears are bright red. One of these days he’ll listen to her about the frigid South Dakota air. It sneaks up on him, and yet Myka is always prepared for it. But Pete is Pete and Myka needs something to laugh with Jane about.

“Man, it is _cold_ today!” he shouts, shivering. “Did anyone know how cold it was gonna be today?”

“Yes,” four voices answer in unison.

Pete rolls his eyes and makes an unimpressed face. “Oh, well, excuse me for not checking the weather.”

Myka laughs and tips her head toward his bag. “Donuts at five in the afternoon?”

Pete furrows his brows. “There’s never a bad time for donuts, Mykes. Anyway,” he says, taking off his scarf and coat, “I really just wanted to give you this, but you need something to go with it and I know how much you like the powdered ones.”

“Give me what? Oh.” He hands her the thermos and she takes a whiff before tasting it, inherently suspicious of any food or drink that Pete hands her after the spoiled eggnog debacle last Christmas. But this smells safe and sweet, with warm hints of cocoa and peppermint.

“I tried to make that tea you like but I couldn’t find Leena and I didn’t want to mess it up, so I made you some hot cocoa instead.”

“Not the—”

“Not the packaged stuff, I know, I know,” he finishes. “I’ve watched you make the stuff enough times to get it right.”

He smiles as Myka takes a sip. It’s thick and sweeter than she’d like, but he never needs to know that. “Thanks, Pete. I needed it.”

“Yeah?” he grins.

“Yeah, the Warehouse heating sucks.”

“Cool.” He puts the donuts on the table and lets everyone grab some. Even Helena is tempted, and Myka smiles as she watches her try to delicately extract a toasted coconut from the pile. Myka just sits and waits for Pete to find her, because this is how his apologies go. “I thought this might be a nice way to say sorry for this morning.”

Helena walks over to them and hands Myka a powdered donut on a napkin before busying herself with some papers at a free desk. Given her sarcasm and frequent lack of a filter, Myka is often surprised by Helena’s tact. A side effect of her upbringing, she supposes.

“I really wasn’t trying to bring up any bad feelings, Pete.”

He frowns and shakes his head. “No, I know. I just—you know, it’s Kelly, man. I mean, I wasn’t expecting to find anybody in this shit-heap of a town, and then I do and she’s gone almost immediately. I didn’t mean to lash out. I guess I’ve just been feeling sensitive lately or something.”

Myka files that away for Helena later. She takes a bite of her donut and grins when Pete looks at her. “Sure,” she says, spraying him with powder. He laughs and she swallows her bite. “It’s cool, Pete. We’re good.”

“We’re good?”

“Yeah, we’re good.”

“Oh, okay. Then you won’t mind if I do this.” He steals the rest of her donut and rubs it all over his hands before wiping them down her arms, coating her in white powder.

“Pete!” She reaches into the bag, looking for another powdered donut and finds a cinnamon one instead. She holds it high above his head and flings brown specks at him. Suddenly Claudia yells and joins in and the office dissolves into chaos.

Artie booms into the room fifteen minutes later, yelling—

(“Don’t you all have any _work_ to do?!)

—and they can only laugh from underneath a layer of donut dust.


	10. You Always Hurt the One You Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had some of these chapters written before I started posting and I thought I could catch up on the others in time, and then I got promoted at work and lots of stuff started happening and instead of distracting me, like I'd hoped, from the bittersweet feelings of having to leave my awesome coworkers, I just didn't have the energy to write. So what was supposed to happen was I would finish this story in time to start posting a Bering & Wells Christmas story with a chapter for every day of December. What's probably going to happen instead is December might extend into January a week or two (because I still plan to write it.) Anyway, TL;DR--sorry for the delay and I hope you enjoy this chapter.

**you always break the kindest heart**   
**with a hasty word you can't recall,**   
**so if i broke your heart last night**   
**it's because i love you most of all.**

**.**

Irene makes short work of the watch, directing Helena’s research almost immediately to Magellan and his expeditions. She pores over page after page, absorbing information as quickly as she can because Irene needs her help and Helena finally feels she can give it. She unfolds manuscripts in the library, at the kitchen table late at night when Myka can’t tempt her. Helena can hear Claudia clicking away at her laptop those late nights, fingers prancing across the keyboard with more speed than should be possible. She always stops near Claudia’s door to listen, the urge to check on her quite irrepressible.

And on some nights, like tonight, Leena is waiting for Helena with a warm cup of tea.

“She’s going to find out eventually,” Leena says.

Helena takes her seat at the table and unrolls a very old map. “I’ll tell her before then,” she counters.

“I think you underestimate her investigative skill. She didn’t get to be a top Secret Service agent because of her looks.”

Helena smiles and waggles her eyebrows. “It would have worked for me.”

Leena shakes her head and takes a seat opposite Helena. “What are you looking at today?”

“Records of Magellan’s courses and his crew. The answer is here somewhere; I know it.”

“Do you know what the question is?”

Helena looks up and frowns. “What?”

“You think the answer is somewhere in these maps, but what question are you even trying to answer?”

“I’m trying to ascertain what it is that has affected Pete and Arthur so heavily.”

“No, you aren’t.” Leena takes a calculated sip of her tea. “You know the answer to that question already.”

Helena appraises Leena, the clairvoyant with an eerily sharp mind. That has more to do with Irene and less to do with her powers, Helena supposes. The glint that sometimes twinkles in Leena’s eye can only be learned when one has witnessed true superiority, and from what Myka has told her, Leena has had more than enough time to observe Irene.

“I have my suspicions, yes,” Helena admits. “There is only one thing capable of enacting a change that drastic.”

“People?”

“Time."

“Myka changed you.”

“Myka changed me because I was ready to be changed.”

“Oh, Helena.” Leena twists her hands around her mug of tea, pulling it closer to her. “I know you more than you might guess; it’s very difficult for an aura to lie, even one as intricate as yours. You weren’t ready for change at all.”

“I absolutely was,” Helena retorts. “The second I stepped into that bookstore, I was ready for it. I yearned for it.”

“That’s true,” Leena concedes. “But that wasn’t when Myka started changing you. Do you remember what happened after the case with your time machine?”

Helena cranes her neck back and searches her mind. “Yes. We had a chat and she ended up staying the night.”

“No, I don’t mean that night. I mean the morning after. You two came down while I was in the middle of making breakfast.”

Helena replays that morning over and over again, searching for a hint of Leena in her memory. She comes up empty. “No, you weren’t.”

“I was,” Leena presses softly. “You were just so focused on each other that you never noticed me. You were fascinated by her.”

There hasn’t been a day in her new life that Myka hasn’t fascinated Helena. Helena hopes that day never comes.

“Can I tell you what I saw?” Leena continues.

“Please do.”

“I told the Regents about your aura, about how it was damaged. It was more than that, though.” Leena settles in her chair and tilts her eyes in a faraway gaze. “I would look at you and I would see empty spots, and I just knew that eventually they were going to be filled. Every time I looked at you, that’s what I saw. You were lonely and sad and so, so angry, but you were also waiting.”

“I was,” Helena agrees. “For the right time to act on my plan.”

“No. This was a different kind of waiting. Myka was a deeper kind of waiting.”

“Are you saying Myka and I were destined to find each other?”

“I’m saying that the longer you spent with Myka, the less you seemed to wait.”

“Life is too important to give the concept of fate any kind of credence.”

“The two of you didn’t talk at all that morning. You smiled and laughed and sat on the couch, but no one spoke until Myka fell asleep and you almost cried. Do you remember what you said?”

(Helena does remember.

Some things can’t even be soothed by tea, she learns.)

/

_For a second, she thought this was normal. That Helena Wells, citizen of the twenty first century, woke up every morning to a woman with wondrous curls and an even more wondrous mind. But she opened her eyes and she remembered. She was not a citizen of the modern world. She was merely a visitor, and even that was more than she deserved._

_Myka’s hands had wandered during the night, flopping loosely over her torso. There are things about people that Helena had forgotten. Warmth was one of them._

_She slid from underneath Myka’s embrace almost without moving. Indeed, if she hadn’t needed to move, she wouldn’t have. But the world was waking up and something was stirring within her chest, and Helena needed to be busy enough not to think about what kind of something it was._

_Myka woke up seconds later, smiling at her with half-lidded eyes and dizzy lips. Helena couldn’t do more than smile back and let Myka follow her down the stairs._

_Helena used to pretend that the weather could predict her emotions. She would go to bed at night and listen to her mother tell her stories about the morning—how it would be sunny and bright; or dreary and full of heavy wind and water-laden leaves. Helena would make sure her last thought before sleeping was of nature, and she would let her dreams guide her into reality. Her father used to grouse about her cantankerous moods during the winter, saying that she must have been a sun in another life because she could not abide the darkness. Over a hundred years later, she finally realized he was right._

_That day, the sun almost blinded her and it still wasn’t enough to hide the grey clouds lurking in the distance. Helena never could figure out how to feel._

_So she walked downstairs and sat on the couch until an epiphany made itself known to her. And Myka sat next to her and eventually, the way she always seemed to, she gravitated nearer and nearer until she was sleeping impossibly close and Helena was on the verge of tears._

_It was sunny. It was raining. Helena apologized._

/

“I am sorry,” Helena mutters, shaking her head. One of these days she will be able to let go of unpleasant things.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Leena smiles. “That was the moment.”

“That was merely _a_ moment.”

“Myka’s aura tangled with yours in that moment and it still hasn’t left.”

“Myka and I have been connected since long before that moment.”

It’s something Helena has never said out loud. She has always known it—she has felt it and fought against it and treasured it, but she has never spoken about it. Helena has learned not to telegraph her emotions, for that is the surest way to become heartbroken. Instead she holds onto her feelings until she can mold them into tangible bits and pieces. Helena is a creature of science. She has always preferred emotion that can be quantified and broken apart.

Helena always believed herself to be an unstoppable force until Myka came along and turned her into an all-too-movable object.

She’s still getting used to it.

“I know,” Leena agrees. “But that was when both of you became a little more…directed.”

“Directed,” Helena repeats. “As in, fated? Intended? Designed? I don’t believe in that, as I’ve already said.”

Leena shakes her head. “I’m not explaining myself very well.” She taps her fingers against her mug, disturbing the liquid inside only a little bit. “Myka has always had a purpose. More than anything she wants to help others; I see it all the time in the auras of people who haven’t been on the receiving end of a lot of affection. Myka will fight for and defend the underdog because that’s how she sees herself, beneath all the federal agent bravado. So she has a deep, enduring purpose, but she doesn’t always know where to focus it. She could happily spend the rest of her life helping Claudia or Pete or anyone else she’s become very close to. In another life, she might have been a professor or a psychologist. Myka has a purpose; it just sort of flails sometimes. Her aura used to be very frenetic and restless.”

“And now? Are you saying that I’m her purpose?”

“No, I’m saying you’re her direction. Both of you help each other to balance and make sense of the world. Myka has filled in the empty places in your aura and you have smoothed hers.”

“Well, I could have told you that. I’m still not quite sure I hold much stock in your theory of destiny.”

“It isn’t—how frequently have you thought of Christina, since you were reinstated?”

“Often.”

“Less often than usual?”

Helena feels a blush color her cheeks. “Yes.”

Leena nods. “You should ask Myka how often she thinks about her sister.”

“What does Tracy have to do with anything?”

Leena flicks her eyes toward the papers on the table. “What question are you trying to resolve?”

Helena sighs and slumps her cheek against her palm. “I’m not,” she grumbles. “I’m trying to find a different answer.”

Leena gets up and refills Helena’s cup of tea. “You should call Mrs. Frederic.”

“You know her far better than I; doesn’t she allow you to call her Irene?”

Leena ponders this, tilting her head before shrugging. “Yes. But I’ve called her Mrs. Frederic the whole time I’ve known her. It’s a family thing.”

“Are you related?”

“No,” Leena smiles, walking away. “Have a good talk.”

“Leena!” But Leena is already gone, no doubt smirking into her cup of tea. Helena narrows her eyes and resolves to look into her relationship with Irene when all this is over. Artifacts are not the only mysteries the Warehouse affords her.

She inhales a breath and dials Irene’s frequency, running a hand through her hair as she waits for her to answer. Helena does not need to be glamorous for this call, but appearing as anything less than composed in Irene’s presence is frowned upon, she is sure.

“Helena, I hope you’re well,” Irene answers.

“More or less.”

“Have you made progress regarding the watch?”

“I believe I know what it is, yes.” She shuffles her papers around, searching for the list of Magellan’s crew members. “There are legends about Magellan, about his love for astronomy. Certainly he had a flair for navigation or else he wouldn’t have embarked on so many voyages. It is said that his astrolabe had the power to alter time.”

“And the watch?”

“Magellan’s captain, Duarte Barbossa, was a close friend of Magellan’s. Not unlike Pete and Myka, if these anecdotes are to be believed. His watch was purported to lead to the location of the astrolabe.”

“Yes, that’s what I’ve found as well.”

Helena frowns. “Was this merely a test, then? Did you actually need my help?”

“I always prefer to rely on information that is acquired from two independent sources. All facts are not the same, Helena.”

“I don’t like the sound of this astrolabe, Irene. There are far too many variables, too many possible chances for catastrophe.”

“I agree, and I believe we’re right in the middle of catastrophe, albeit a quiet one.”

Helena suppresses a shiver. Irene is never chipper, but to hear her portend the worst is cause for more than concern. “Are you certain they’ve used it, then?”

“I am,” Irene nods.

“Do you know why?”

“I have a theory. Artie will not tell me why. I had hoped he might at your hearing.”

“What did he say?” Helena blurts before she can stop herself.

Irene smirks. “That’s a story for another day, when we have more time at our disposal.” Irene turns her head, displaying a thick lock of grey hair that Helena is sure hasn’t always existed. “I first noticed this after we triumphed over Walter Sykes.”

“I suppose we all succumb to age sooner or later,” Helena quips.

“Not me,” Irene fires back. “Not the Caretaker. Our connection with the Warehouse extends our life; it’s both a blessing and a curse. The only way my hair would ever turn grey is if I died.”

“And the only way you can die is if your connection with the Warehouse is severed. You believe Pete and Arthur used the astrolabe because something terrible happened to the Warehouse.”

“I believe the Warehouse was destroyed completely.”

Helena sighs and pushes her hair back. It’s a nervous tic that Myka loves; she doubts it has the same effect on Irene.

“That isn’t exactly an argument against its use.”

“No; I’m sure Pete and Artie had no other option but to use it. But it is now our problem to deal with, and I’d like it dealt with quickly.”

“If you’re suggesting that we somehow reverse whatever they did…”

Irene purses her lips and shakes her head; Helena watches the shock of grey hair flash past like smoke from a halfhearted bonfire. “I don’t want to undo it. I want to neutralize it. That is the business we’re in, Helena.”

“I hope that sarcasm means you have an idea of some countermeasure,” Helena quips.

Irene smiles and Helena feels safer, even if she is not reassured. Helena has never particularly liked people in positions of authority—or, rather, she has not liked people other than her holding positions of authority—but she likes Irene. When Helena was small and too nervous to do anything, her mother would smile and tell her to take it in little steps ( _because there is no obstacle that cannot be overcome with a proper plan, my love_ ) and Helena would feel warm and calm. She feels a wisp of that memory now.

As Irene explains about the dagger, most of that calm falls away. It isn’t just that it’s dangerous—Helena can clearly see what her role in this will be, though Irene hasn’t actually said it yet.

(Helena can also clearly see that she will accept.

Myka is not the only one who will be unhappy.)

/

Helena expects that a tense conversation with Myka is in her future. She is not prepared for the one that is already happening when she walks into the Warehouse the next morning.

“—I’m not saying you’re dangerous, Pete, I’m just saying you put me _in_ danger!”

“Look, you’re the one who knocked over that weird lamp thing—”

“Because I was already trying to catch the baseball that you were playing with—”

“—how was I supposed to know it would shoot some crazy sparkles of death—”

“—I mean, how long you need to work here before you remember to wear gloves any time you leave the office—”

“—this wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t overreact; I can take care of myself, Myka—”

“—yeah, until you can’t anymore and I have to save you from yourself—”

“Well, you’ve had a lot of practice with that, haven’t you?”

Myka straightens and crosses her arms. “What the hell are you talking about, Pete?”

“Haven’t you noticed it, Myka?” Pete walks closer to her and Helena notices Myka almost take a step backward. Helena understands the impulse; Pete does not look like Pete. He holds out the fingers of his right hand and counts off. “You can barely keep a relationship with your dad; you never talk to Tracy; H.G. almost destroyed the world because you brought her back to the Warehouse; your thing with Sam blew up in your face.”

“Don’t go there, Pete…”

“So yeah, excuse me if self-preservation ranks higher than you sometimes. I’d like to be the one partner you don’t kill!”

Helena places herself in between Myka and Pete before either of them can make a move, and it still takes a lot of effort to restrain Myka.

“Walk away, Pete,” she warns.

“I don’t think—”

“ _Run_."

He throws one more disgusted look at Myka and storms out of Artie’s office. Helena turns to grab Myka’s shoulders before she can run away.

“That is not Pete,” she murmurs, running calming hands up and down Myka’s arms. “You know that isn’t Pete. He would never say those things. He would never think those things. He adores you, Myka.”

Myka sniffs and nods her head absently. “One of the first cases we ever worked together, we had to find James Braid’s chair. Sitting on it makes you act out your subconscious desires; something to do with the metal in the springs. I got whammied the first day and spent the rest of the case punching Pete in the nose every five seconds.”

“Well, I’m sure we’ve all had that urge now and then,” Helena smiles, in an attempt to lighten the mood.

“Yeah, sure; me too, still. Only now I know that Pete isn’t a jerk so I never _really_ punch him. But all those urges and negative thoughts, they have to come from somewhere, right? You can’t just create emotions out of nothing. They have to exist already, even if they’re almost unnoticeable.”

Helena can feel her heart clench and ache. She will be there for every hardship Myka encounters; she will weather good news and bad, artifacts and family, with her. Helena will be there to listen to all of Myka’s needs, but Myka needs Pete in a way she cannot satisfy, and it breaks her heart to see Myka left in the lurch.

“Whatever’s affecting Pete and Arthur is clearly something you haven’t seen before. There’s no telling what it can do.”

Myka nods and closes her eyes, taking a deep breath that accentuates her neck in a magnificent way. “You know, I don’t even know where Artie is. I don’t think he’ll miss us for a while.”

“Where did we last leave off in _Treasure Island_?”

Myka shakes her head, though she does it with a smile. “I think I just want to lie down for a bit.”

“Well, I know of a comfortable couch that can accommodate you quite nicely. I believe it even seats two.”

Myka widens her smile. “Don’t try to charm your way out of anything. I noticed your little slip.”

“I thought you might.”

“We’ll talk about it later, though.”

“Indeed we will.”

/

They do talk about it later. It is a tense and sad conversation, just as Helena predicted. Myka worries about what will happen to Helena on her journey and Helena worries about what will happen to Myka at the Warehouse in her absence. (It’s not always an advantage when worriers find each other.)

After their talk, as they settle into bed and Myka lays her head on Helena’s shoulder for once, instead of the other way around; as Helena combs her fingers through Myka’s hair and Myka returns the favor with kisses to Helena’s collarbone; as Helena’s hands find the nape of Myka’s neck, the small of her back, the crease between her shoulders—Helena wonders if this is what her life will be, for however long it lasts this time. She wonders if she will always leave Myka. She wonders if she will always come back. She wonders if they will ever get a chance at stability, at a dog and a house and all of the other things she knows Myka dreams about. Helena wonders if those are things Myka actually wants, or if she would be content to simply stay at the inn forever because Pete and Claudia will always need her, too.

There is an inkling of hope bubbling in the pit of Helena’s stomach and she can’t decide whether to stomp it out or let it blossom.

Outside her window, the night breeze rattles branches against the glass. Stars twinkle against a cloudless sky and the moon even seems to wink.

Helena dreams of nebulas and black holes.


	11. Walkin' My Baby Back Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this has extended itself far longer than I wanted it to. Nevertheless, hopefully I can get the last chapter up quicker than this. Enjoy!

**we go 'long harmonizing a song**   
**or i'm recitin' a poem.**   
**owls go by and they give me the eye,**   
**walkin' my baby back home.**

**.**

“Good evening, Helena.”

Helena has become so used to Irene’s unannounced visits that she is immune to their stealth. She barely blinks this time.

“I wonder if you might join me in the Dark Vault.”

Helena sighs and turns in her chair. “That sounds foreboding.”

Irene smiles. “It is merely for protective purposes; I only wish to talk.”

Helena nods and falls into step with the Caretaker. She glances down at the floor, noticing functional black heels and a hefty black briefcase. “That’s a rather substantial portfolio,” she remarks.

“I intend it to be a productive conversation.”

They pass the walk in comfortable silence; Helena listens to Irene’s shoes echo on the concrete. She resists the urge to scuffle her own. Tact and posture have never come naturally to Helena, but she still clings to the social mores and rules inflicted by a childhood of Victorian schoolteachers. In these times when everything overlaps and nothing is static, Helena takes comfort in her poise.

“If you could just wait a moment,” Irene says, stopping in front of the door to the Dark Vault. “Between your encounter with the Regents and my…enigmatic nature, I think you’ve had a tougher time readjusting to the Warehouse than you should have. I hope you don’t feel like I am intentionally manipulating you, particularly when it comes to sharing things with Myka. I have only understanding and respect for your relationship with her. There are simply precautions I must take.”

Helena hesitates a moment, taken aback by Irene’s sentiment. She has never come across as the apologetic type, perhaps because she is so adept at making difficult decisions.

There are few people who possess the ability to wipe the wit and sarcasm from Helena’s mind, and it seems she’s just found another one.

“Thank you,” she eventually says. “I appreciate your honesty. Though I will admit I am a little bewildered by it.”

Irene quirks an eyebrow. “I am always honest.”

“Yes, but not usually in such an expressive way.”

“A Caretaker’s life is solitary only by choice. My past is littered with emotions and surprises.”

Helena watches Irene—catches the miniscule twinge of her lip that would go unnoticed by most people—and wonders how old she is.

“Well,” Irene breathes. “Onward.”

She opens the door (Helena does not yet have a code, and though she will never explicitly press for one, it irks to no end.) Helena is surprised to see Claudia and Leena waiting inside.

Helena raises her eyebrows. “Isn’t this a party.”

“Yeah, totally bitchin’.”

“Ms. Donovan…”

“Right, sorry.”

(Helena looks at Claudia differently, now that she knows what the future holds. It’s a very odd sensation because she has never felt it before. Helena has never wanted to feel it before; knowing the future comes perilously close to limiting it. The future is better in the abstract, where possibilities may fly and blossom.

She strives very hard for her face to mask her worry, but there is too much mother in her to succeed.

Helena only hopes Claudia won’t notice.)

“Where are Myka and Steve?” Helena asks.

“They’re Team Pete,” Claudia quips. “Jane’s talking to them in the library.”

Helena frowns. “Shouldn’t they have a discussion somewhere more private, or at least protected?”

“Do you _really_ think Pete’s gonna bust them in there?”

“Right.” Helena shakes her head. “Sorry, but ‘Team Pete’?”

“Yeah, we’re Team—”

Irene opens her briefcase and passes around papers. “By now, you’re all aware of the danger this Warehouse is in—”

“— _Team Artie_ ,” Claudia mouths. Helena checks a smile and understands only enough.

“—is a formidable artifact,” Irene is saying as Helena wanders back to the conversation. “If we could stop it simply with a static bag, we’d have done so. But the astrolabe induces chaos, and chaos does not like to be contained. Simply put, the situation has spiraled and we are calling in the troops. These packets have your individual assignments.” Irene clasps her hands and turns toward Leena. “I’d like you to keep researching a countermeasure. The dagger appears to be our only solution, but appearances are rarely what they seem.”

“Boring old research for me, too?” Claudia says, flipping through her pages.

Helena catches the wisp of a smile on Irene’s face. “Not exactly. Do you remember how you pursued Artie before you came to work here?”

Claudia finally looks up and scowls. “You want me to taser him?”

“I want you to thwart him by any means necessary. If you must be sneaky or underhanded or duplicitous, be it. That research is your cover story if Artie asks, and he will ask.”

“Sneaky but never malicious, right? I don’t want to hurt the geezer.”

Irene definitely smiles this time. “Of course.”

Helena, so immersed in the gravity of the situation before, finally thinks to look at her own assignment. As it becomes clear that Irene will address her next, Helena becomes aware of how woefully unprepared she is to engage. It feels a bit like being asked to resolve a question you’ve no idea how to answer.

“And I suppose—”

“I would ask that you not look at yours yet, Helena,” Irene interrupts. “I’ll be by later to talk.”

Helena sighs. “Do you ever tire of playing games, Irene?”

“Ask me that when I lose.”

And she is gone.

“Okay, with an intro like that you gotta open it now, H.G.”

Helena laughs and deftly clasps her file behind her back. “I will never profess to know what that woman is thinking, but I do believe she meant for me to wait at least a little longer before peeking.”

“C’mooooon,” Claudia pouts. “I bet it’s some kickass adventure-quest-thing where—”

“If it is”—(and Helena already knows that it is; she only assumes that these papers are dangerous people and places mercifully located far from home)—“then I shall gladly trade with you.”

Claudia’s neck flushes and she averts her eyes. “Oh.”

“I don’t mean to embarrass you, Claudia. I’m just very weary.”

“Of the Warehouse?”

“Of…responsibility. I have finally found the time I sought in my past life. I would like the peace, as well.”

“I’ll fix it, H.G. We’ll fix it. It’s what we do.”

Helena has spent years making machines and trying to understand the people who built them. She disavows every god and the idea of spiritual unity disinterests her—and yet. There is one thing about people that she has been unable to quantify or bottle for observation later. Some might call it optimism, but that is simplifying it too much.

It is not love or happiness or any vague emotion. It is the hours you spend scouring books and papers so you might prove a point; it is the promises you make and then strive to keep only in hindsight. There is a drive that propels every human being; and it is always pure, and it is always earnest, and it always aches.

“I know,” Helena smiles.

(She believes this drive in everyone she meets. She has never seen it shine so brightly as it does in Claudia.)

Claudia nods and walks away, muttering at something on her phone. Leena and Helena both watch her, smiling and shaking their heads.

“I have some notes that might point you in the right direction. Not about the dagger, of course, but other avenues that I didn’t have the time to pursue.”

“That would be really helpful,” Leena says.

Helena crosses her arms and looks down. “Do you see it? In Claudia, I mean. Do you see what she could be?”

Leena nods. “Pretty much since she came to the Warehouse. She wears possibility like a cape.”

“How can you stand it?” Helena whispers.

Leena cocks her head, appraising, before giving Helena a hug, her gentle curls tickling against Helena’s cheek.

“We’ll be fine, Helena. I can see other things, too.”

/

The inn is not the same place without laughter. Helena is reminded of the taut twine of distance each of the agents kept from each other in Warehouse 12. It makes a difference when you live with your coworkers. Helena had dismissed the idea when MacPherson de-bronzed her. Now she wouldn’t trade it for the world.

“Don’t go,” Myka whispers from her spot on the sofa.

Helena smiles sadly and settles down next to her. “Believe me, I’d rather stay here with you and Claudia.”

Myka shifts, sitting up straighter and affecting a dangerous look. “Then why won’t you? No one is forcing you to do this, Helena.”

“Irene asked me and I gave her my word.”

“Break it.”

Helena frowns and clasps Myka’s hand. “I can’t, darling. When you returned to the Warehouse, were you oversolicitous?”

Myka barks a laugh. “You should have seen me with Pete. I was basically begging for him to let me apologize.”

Helena smiles. She can imagine Myka’s eager anxiety, the way her lip catches between her teeth when she is truly worried about something.

“I feel the same about this…adventure, love.”

“Anybody could do this, Helena.”

“Of those of us working for the Warehouse, no one, save for me, has actively tried to destroy it.”

“And, what, now it’s your responsibility to save it?”

“A rather old-fashioned outlook, I realize, but I fear a part of me will always be old-fashioned.”

“The onus shouldn’t rest only on your shoulders.”

“Ah, you see, I have thought of a solution to that.” Helena reaches behind her, stretching over the back of the couch to grab Irene’s file. Her shirt rides up to the middle of her torso. She is sure Myka’s gaze follows every inch of it.

“Irene gave this to me and asked me to wait to open it,” she says when she settles again. “It wasn’t explicitly said, but I’m sure she meant for me to open it in your presence.”

“Oh, you’re sure?”

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Helena amends. “I had planned to open it with you either way.”

“I thought Mrs. Frederic had you pretty tightly kept.”

“Irene plays things very close to the chest. It is you, however, who keeps me. So, shall we?” Helena smiles and tucks a thumb under the lip of the folder, ready to open it.

Myka gently places her hand atop Helena’s instead. “Look at it later, tell me the important parts. I don’t want to spend these next few moments talking about things that are probably going to terrify me.”

“What would you like to do, then?”

“Let’s go for a walk.”

Helena smiles. “It’s almost ten, darling,” she protests, even as she gets up from the couch.

“Do you have the sleep schedule of a schoolgirl? Let’s go for a walk,” Myka repeats, her eyes twinkling.

Bless her memory.

/

The weather is getting considerably colder with every successive day; were her time not so limited, Helena would have pushed for sitting by the fire. Myka hails from Colorado, a state of almost perpetual snow. She makes excellent fires.

“What would you like to talk about? Bittersweet platitudes?”

“If you’re ever reduced to platitudes, I’ll know you’re bored with me,” Myka laughs.

Helena runs a hand up and down Myka’s arm before finally settling on grasping her hand a little tighter than is perhaps necessary. “I shall never be bored with you, darling.”

Myka hums and swings their arms as they walk. “Can I tell you something I’ve never told anyone?”

“You would honor me.”

Myka pauses and squints at Helena, a droll smile slowly creeping onto her cheeks. “Did you read a lot of stories about knights when you were little?”

“Didn’t you?” (Chuckling is the adult version of giggling and Helena is becoming very well-versed in what makes Myka chuckle.) “What were you going to say?”

“When we were in Egypt, under the spell of the soul test, my happiest place was the Warehouse.”

“That hardly seems surprising.”

Myka smiles and knocks their shoulders together. “No, I know, but it’s not just like I love my job. I loved my job in DC and I never felt like this. I think—I spent so much time waiting for the moment when I would love my dad like other people love their fathers, and it turned out I was waiting for the Warehouse the whole time.” She kicks a chunk of dusty rock; Helena watches it skip into the darkness. “Do you believe in fate? Destiny?”

“My past is littered with too many tragedies to entertain silly designs of the future.”

“I never believed in it either until Mrs. Frederic told me about the Warehouse.”

“You think you were destined to work here?”

“I think I was destined for a lot of great things and this was the one that found me first.”

“Ah, so sure of ourselves, are we?”

Myka laughs and cocks an eyebrow. “Well, I can change my destiny and go back to DC if you really—”

Helena cuts her off with a kiss. It is trite, cliché, the stuff of all those chick flicks Claudia made her watch in bouts of loneliness. Nevertheless, it proves quite effective.

She trails her arms down Myka’s back, looping them just above her hips. “I do not believe in fate but the luck I’ve had in meeting you is truly the greatest wonder of my life. And perhaps, in a few years when our lives are calmer and fuller, you’ll give me reason to change my tune.”

“I am two seconds away from having sex with you right here in the middle of the desert.”

“You’ll find no objections from me.”

“You’d get rock-burn on your ass.”

“Don’t remove my trousers.”

Myka frowns. “Yeah, but then my hand cramps really fast.”

“Your two seconds have drastically altered the mood.”

Myka rolls her eyes, slipping her hands into the backs of Helena’s pockets and drawing their bodies flush against each other. She smirks at Helena’s involuntary gasp.

“You’re topping again, darling,” Helena murmurs as Myka guides them to the ground.

Myka affixes her lips to Helena’s neck. “I am,” she whispers between kisses, “and I’d really appreciate if we could let that last for more than two minutes this time.”

“Okay.”

/

(Helena has not had as many relations as people are wont to think. To be sure, she was never a prude and she is far from unpracticed, but she is not as overzealous as some of her coworkers give her credit for.

It is a difficult business, the business of sex; certainly not as simple as it would seem. Or, rather, Helena was never able to keep it simple. There is no such thing as an unattached affair. She is far too good an actress for that.

But she has always been able to navigate the squall of feelings. Helena knows how to prepare for a clingy lover; an arrogant lover; a tumble in bed that leaves her memory almost as soon as it happens.

Helena could never have prepared for the uncluttered incongruities of Myka Bering. Alabaster skin so smooth it would catch on the crook in her voice; curls that draw loops around the clarity of her thoughts. Myka is a paradox painted in flesh, resolution and pliancy melded into one impossible woman.

(She is an impossible woman whom Helena can touch. That is the paradox.)

The sand beneath her shoulders shifts and prods uncomfortably as Myka loosens her movements. Helena does not care. She only feels Myka, the cool breeze on her stomach; Myka, the fire in her legs; Myka, the thunder in her blood.

Helena is on her back in an unassuming piece of the desert. To her, it seems an Eden.)

/

She is there when they return to the B&B. Helena knows their appearances must shout to the world what they’ve been up to. It matters only because she knows it matters to Myka.

“Good evening,” Irene says. She might even smirk a little.

Myka fixes her shirt and blushes. “There’s probably paperwork I could finish…” she stammers before disappearing inside.

Helena watches her go, hoping that her new companion will vanish if she doesn’t look her way. Irene simply watches as well.

“If you’re here to discuss that file,” Helena says, sighing and crossing her arms, “you’ll find me a very mute participant.”

“I’d gathered you might not have read it.”

“I don’t plan to read it tonight.”

“I don’t expect you to.”

“Come again?”

“Well, I did say you should read it later. A nice, ambiguous word, ‘later’.”

“You’re teetering on the edge of funny, Irene.”

Irene unclasps her hands and smiles; Helena actually sees teeth. “Do you remember our conversations before you were reinstated? They grew to be almost casual.”

“There was almost a question in that last sentence.”

“Please, Helena; walk with me.”

Helena obliges. At the last possible second, but even so, she obliges.

“You don’t need to leave tomorrow,” Irene starts.

“That’s not a very casual way to begin this conversation.”

“No, but it is what you were wondering. I don’t need you to leave tomorrow. Two days from now should do it.”

“How very generous of you.”

“My husband was a carpenter—”

“You’ve only married once?”

Irene tilts her head; in the night, her glasses glint with stars so bright Helena can’t see through to her eyes. “Was there reason for me to marry more than once?”

“If I had lived as long as you have and not spent most of it in bronze, I might have married a few times.”

“And how old do you think I am, Helena?”

“You’re the closest thing I’ll have to a peer, I suppose.”

Irene smiles and nods her head. “My husband was a carpenter,” she continues. “He built the first house we lived in. It was a good house, sturdy and warm if a little lopsided in places. We almost moved after our children kept tripping over the bump in the nursery floor.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I have a fondness for quirks.”

Helena smiles. “Atlas House was rather similar. Charles had a knack for finding all of its loose floorboards. I’m sure if you lifted them today you’d find some of his boyhood treasures.”

“Were you and Charles close?”

Helena clasps her hands in front of her and sighs. “We were…amiable. As an older sister, I’m afraid I terrorized him quite a bit. Perhaps that was his motivation in cooking up that writing scheme of his.”

“You edited his works, though, didn’t you?”

“And supplied the ideas and research,” Helena confirms. “How could you tell?”

“There are passages in every book that don’t seem to fit with the rest of the writing.”

“Too amateur?”

“Too refined.”

Helena laughs and means it. “Why are we talking about the past, Irene?”

“Because you must trust me enough to help build the future.”

“I already trust you.”

“You trust me on a professional level. I need you to trust me personally.”

She is back in the desert again only this ground seems colder, plainer. “And just how much am I risking to find this dagger, Irene?”

“More than you would on any normal hunt for an artifact, which is why I’ve set you up with some contacts.”

“Warehouse contacts?”

“No, these are associates I’ve found all on my own. The Warehouse has no idea of their importance.”

“Alright,” Helena nods. “And the answer lies with them, and you truly think we can defeat whatever trouble Arthur and Pete have caused.”

“I do,” Irene replies. “I believe the Warehouse has a great future and I believe you will be instrumental in shaping it. I believe _you_ have a future.”

“Well, you are more certain than I.”

Irene stops and raises an eyebrow. “Do you think the Warehouse will cast you out again?”

Helena considers her answer only for a moment. “No.”

“Are you planning on leaving voluntarily?”

“No.”

“Then I’m afraid you’ll have to keep growing forward. It is the nature of things, you know.”

“Nature is mutable.”

“Myka is not.” Helena whips her head around to stare at Irene. Growing forward, indeed. “Not when it comes to you, at least.”

“Irene—”

“If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to trust you personally, as well.”

“Alright.”

“You’ve never told me when you realized you were in love with her. Before Yellowstone, I know, but the Regents swept you away before we could get that far in our previous talks.”

“I’ve never told you because I don’t know, and I don’t know because it’s an impossible question to answer. It’s like asking when I realized I loved Christina, or Charles, or any of my childhood friends. Feelings like that don’t suddenly appear. They wait out their existence until they are uncovered.”

“And when did Myka… _uncover_ you?”

Helena barks a laugh that fades into the night. “Oh, now that was on purpose,” she grins. “I’m impressed.”

“I can be quite impressive.”

“I’ve no doubt.” She cranes her neck, studying the sky. It looks so similar to the pattern of light in Warehouse 2. Someday, Helena will be able to think of that place without needing to profusely apologize. “There was a moment, right after the debacle with my time machine, but—I assume Myka told you about the three tests in Warehouse 2?”

“She did.”

“Pete felt sympathy for me, after I’d been freed from my vision. He is painfully sensitive; I could see it in his eyes. But Myka, she looked at me as if she understood my pain and felt great sorrow for having to compound it. I used to catch Wolly looking at me like that every once in a while. I knew.”

“That must have been a difficult moment.”

Helena shakes her head. “I told myself it wasn’t. That I’d already committed to what I had to do, and so doing it shouldn’t have been an issue, and it wasn’t. Myka was the issue. It is a terrifying feeling, knowing you’ve lost someone after coming so close to having them.”

“You have Myka now, Helena.”

Helena blinks, blurring the light from the moon. “I do. How long I am able to maintain that remains to be seen.”

“Take it from a woman who has lived longer than most—you have no reason to doubt where you stand with Myka.”

“You’re being rather candid as of late, Irene; I have half a mind to douse you with goo.”

“You have heard too many truths this last year and not enough of them have been positive. I am happy for you, Helena. I am happy for you and Myka both. I simply wanted you to know that.” She straightens her jacket and flattens the folds of her skirt. “Take a look at that file when you can; let me know which avenue you intend to pursue first. I wish you the best, Helena.”

Helena finds her own fatigue echoed in the planes of Irene’s face. She also finds hope, and it is catching.

“Thank you.”

/

For once, Helena does not check on her housemates as she returns to the B&B. It has become practice as of late, to determine where everyone is. But tonight Myka is waiting for her and that is the only thing on Helena’s mind.

Their room is dark as she walks in, the only light coming from the lamp on the nightstand with the wonderful three-way dimmer. It is at its lowest setting and amber shadows flick over Myka’s forehead.

Helena changes into her sleepwear, throwing on an oversized shirt of Myka’s for comfort. The sheets are warm as she slides beneath them. Myka is warmer.

“’S Mrs. Frederic gone?” Myka mumbles.

“Vanished,” Helena whispers.

“She does that.”

“Hm, indeed she does.” Helena pulls herself closer to Myka, wrapping an arm around her stomach and kissing the back of her neck. “She wants me to leave the day after tomorrow.”

Myka is half-asleep and will only marginally remember this in the morning. But Helena must say it now, before it becomes too difficult to admit.

Myka sighs, exhaling loud enough to wake the ferret. “’Kay, well, you can sleep until then.”

“Alright,” Helena chuckles. “I love you, Myka.”

“Love you, too.”

Helena does not sleep.


End file.
